The VG Resource

treasure was a third-party game developer that occasionally did work for first-party companies such as nintendo and sega. most of their work is phenomenal, and a lot of it is well-remembered, but it still feels like they, as a developer, are underrated. if you've ever heard of gunstar heroes, radiant silvergun, or ikaruga--that's treasure.

personally, my favorite title of theirs is dynamite headdy, an offbeat platformer for the sega genesis that sported a kind of puppet show theme.



it had an interesting gimmick in the form of headdy's changing heads. you could pick up powerups like a vacuum head that sucked up all enemies on screen, a hammer head that turned headdy's regular head toss into a stronger attack, or even a small head that turns his entire body small. the game got really creative with its head-swapping concept, as well as other gimmicks involving the use of headdy's head-toss. it's aged really well, and is still worth playing today! but play the japanese version with a translation patch if you can; the international release cut out most of the dialog and generally made the game more difficult.

Treasure formed a big part of my designing method. Like any game company, there are some things I dont really like but overall, their inventive uses of a single basic action taught me to be able to squeeze the most you can from a single action (for example in Dynamite headdy, you can throw your head to kill enemies, cling onto hooks, push stuff around and rotate specific platforms).

One of my fave games, Mischief Makers, is another example of creative use of a single action, and while short and random and unstructured at times, really shone with its cool boss battles.

If i were to describe treasure with a handful of adjectives it would be creativity, action and inventive design.

If you are interested in its games i suggest:

Alien Soldier
Rakugaki Showtime
Dynamite Headdy
Bangai-O
Mischief Makers
Sin and Punishment