In the days of shooters and platformers, when games on consoles fired and leapt solely within the confines of 2D, a group of workers at the powerful company of Konami wanted to do something different. Not different in terms of genre but in way of design and execution. Masato Maegawa wanted to start his own development company, and so - together with other Konami employees who were tired of passing off rehashes as sequels – quit in April 1992 and a couple months later formed the company known as Treasure. Their goals were to make excellent games and to avoid making sequels unless they could improve the original formula enough that it should be worthy of being labeled as such. Unlike many companies who share that very same mindset, Treasure actually manages to consistently pull it off, all the while generally overrun by odd, quirky ideas that have no guarantee to sell.

First up was Gunstar Heroes, a side-scrolling action game that played like an evolved Contra and immediately showed off Treasure's love with continuous over-the-top bosses. Arguably among the greatest action games of its time, it became the basis for numerous underlying and returning ideas in many of the company's subsequent games. Treasure peppered the rest of the Genesis' life-span with a variety of odd and inventive titles ranging from a four-player fighting game to a European-styled action-RPG. Thanks to a limited-region release, America was denied the very tough romp through a seemingly constant stream of bosses known as Alien Soldier. This was a game that could at least compete with (if not best) Gunstar Heroes, a comparison made even odder considering that Alien Soldier borrows two bosses and a similar weapon system from its predecessor.

Following the release of Light Crusader, Treasure appeared willing to experiment with different machines, concluding its Sega-only run with Guardian Heroes on the Saturn and from there on out branching to every console it could. Guardian Heroes was in many ways a sequel to the company's previous licensed Genesis title, Yu Yu Hakusho, taking the multi-leveled fighting game format and applying it to a lengthy choose-your-adventure beat-'em-up. It felt like a natural progression from Capcom arcade games like Dungeons and Dragons, with tighter controls and an involved story mixed in with the leveling characters and evolving spells.

Next up was the developer's foray into the world of Nintendo, bringing with it the varied gameplay of Mischief Makers. Primarily designed around shaking objects to perform numerous tasks, it also involved missile surfing, tricycle riding, Olympics, and racing. One of my personal favorite Treasure games, it was (and still is) met with a lot of criticism as being little more then mediocre. The fabulous color-switching platformer Silhouette Mirage on the Saturn followed, with a less-then-stellar porting job much later on the market-dominating PlayStation.

Treasure's entry into the arcades was Radiant Silvergun, a creation most famous for its ability to score insane prices on eBay for the Saturn version and slightly less famous for its notoriety as an excellent overhead shooter. Much like Guardian Heroes it browses what has come before in its genre and picks up as many good ideas as it can along the way to fuse all of them into a single cohesive package. It uses combo-based shooting for its scoring system, seven different weapons that gain power as they're used, and multi-sectional bosses that can be destroyed piece by piece. The eventual home console port also added anime cut scenes that elaborated on the narrative, once again creating an unparalleled story in its field.

Rakugaki Showtime then appeared as Treasure's second game for the PlayStation and the only one specifically developed for it, but the four-player fighting/party game suffered a hit from unknown legal circumstances that cut its production run short. An interesting and hilarious game when actually played with four people, it lacks a bit of balance and really isn't worth its typical eBay prices that came as a result of the low print run.

Treasure returned to the N64 for the Japanese-only Bakuretesu Muteki Bangaioh, a platformer/shooter that thrived on trying to create the ultimate explosion. English speakers would later know it better as Bangai-O, when it was released on the Dreamcast with tweaked gameplay and a hysterical script translated by Treasure themselves and left in thanks to Conspiracy Games.

Another arcade attempt, called Gun Beat, was announced and screenshots released for it, including one of a character riding a giant hamster. A racing combat game, it was eventually completely scrapped. GameArts then approached and initiated a team-up effort that resulted in the very poor overhead shooter sequel Silpheed: The Lost Planet as Treasure's PS2 debut. The next release was another team-up, but this time with the industrious Nintendo group EAD, the result of which union is an incredible into-the-screen-scrolling shooter featuring perfect balance and play control. Sin & Punishment was designed from the get-go to be released in America and complete with full English voice-acting, poor sales dropped that idea and it remains a Japan-only indefinitely.

The low sales got worse with the 2001 game Stretch Panic, a visually inventive game that was little more than boss battles using an almost painfully slow main character. It failed to entertain most thanks to its sparse design and extremely odd gameplay, although it did manage to grab the cover of the equally short-lived GameGO! Magazine.

The developer returned to the arcade with Ikaruga, an overhead shooter that was in many ways a successor to its prior achievement in the genre. A stunning and ingenious effort that involved management between enemies and bullet barrages of opposite colors, it secured a home release on the Dreamcast - a console thought long since defunct by that point.

Work from here primarily falls into Game Boy Advance and GameCube releases and every single one so far is a licensed product of some sort. From the decent Wario World and Buster's Bad Dream to the excellent Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting, the content output dramatically increased - although a few of the titles seem to lack a bit of the charm from the olden days. With a new Astro Boy released for GBA and work on Gradius V under the very company it originally separated from, Treasure certainly isn't slowing down anytime soon.

Click here for Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting game footage. (MPEG, 352 x 240, 0:38, 5.13MB)

Click here for Japanese Astro Boy: Omega Factor commercials. (Ad 1) (Ad 2) (Ad 3) (Windows Media, 320 x 240, 0:15 - 0:30, 1-2MB)

Continue to: The games