Treasure Co. Ltd

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims.
 Please help Wikipedia by adding references. See the talk page for details.
Treasure Co. Ltd
Treasure Logo
Type of Company Public
Founded June 19, 1992
Headquarters Japan
Key people Masato Maegawa, CEO
Products video games
Employees about 30 industry = Video games
Website www.treasure-inc.co.jp

Treasure Co. Ltd (トレジャー) is a Japanese video game developer, founded by former employees of Konami on June 19, 1992.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Before foundation

A great deal of mythology exists surrounding the role Treasure employees had in the development of many Konami games. Many of these have their roots in the writing of overzealous journalists, eager to give them credit for work which might seem similar in style. Despite these claims, Treasure employees were never a real "team" at Konami; they were mostly fairly young, had only been with the company for 2 or 3 years, and no more than 4 of them ever worked on any one game while at Konami.

The core founding members came from various development teams within Konami Tokyo; the most notable being the teams behind the arcade and NES Bucky O'Hare games. The team behind the arcade version included: Hiroshi Iuchi, primary background artist for most of Treasure's early work and director of Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga; Norio Hanzawa (aka NON), primary music composer; and Tetsuhiko Kikuchi (aka Han), enemy character designer. The team behind the NES game (which was entirely different) included: Masato Maegawa, CEO and founder; Kaname Shindoh, graphic designer; Hideyuki Suganami, programmer; and Kouichi Kimura, graphic designer. At the time of Treasure's formation, they had around 20 employees, a number which has swelled only slightly to around 30 (though they frequently work with many freelancers who are not employees)

Contrary to popular belief, no significant employees were involved in the development of Contra: Hard Corps, or Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose. However, one to three identifiable employees were involved in the following Konami games:

This issue is important and confusing because some critics consider the style and quality of Treasure's games to be inconsistent. For example, games like Silpheed, Stretch Panic, and Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting appear to share the design aesthetics of other game companies, not Treasure, while games like Contra: Hard Corps deceptively seem to have been made by Treasure employees while still at Konami.

[edit] After foundation

Treasure is known for intense action games, with a lot with creative gameplay mechanics and flashy boss encounters. Their design ethic usually involves taking the basic elements of a genre, adding something new to the play mechanics or controls, as well as adding many new and varied elements into the level design. They are also known for their boss levels, which are very often the focus of the game. On older systems, these featured larged multijointed sprite bosses (using a technique where each arm or appendage was a still picture that was rotated for movement instead of the entire boss being one picture). They were also once notorious for their apparent policy that forbade developing sequels of their games, although Treasure employees have said on numerous occasions that no such policy existed.

Treasure's games are very similar to the ones they produced when they first started. Because of this, while their early games were considered very progressive, and praised for their innovation and graphics which pushed the hardware to its limit, their later games were perceived as old-fashioned or "retro." To this day, only five of their games have had true 3D gameplay, and of them two (Wario World and Sin and Punsishment were noted for their gameplay conventions that echoed many 2D games, and two others (Dragon Drive: D Masters Shot and Stretch Panic) were major critical failures (Treasure has never acknowledged Dragon Drive on their website, and their name was removed from the box, although it appears in the credits, leading many to believe that they were particularly unhappy with this release).

Although they are perhaps best known for their creative and humorous original franchises, they have also produced many licensed games, including McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure, Hajime no Ippo: THE FIGHTING and Wario World. At the time of this writing, licensed games and sequels have made up their last 11 releases, with Stretch Panic being their most recent original.

Treasure is often called a "cult developer" because, while they have a dedicated and loyal following among fans and critics, they very seldom experience mainstream financial success. In the west, their best selling games were Mischief Makers and Wario World, while critical darlings like Gunstar Heroes and Gradius V were financial disappointments.


[edit] Games developed by Treasure

Items marked with a '*' were not released in North America/Europe/Australia.

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../t/r/e/Treasure_Co._Ltd_0d84.html"