Masato Maegawa

Founder — CEO — Lead Programmer — Director

Masato Maegawa is the founding figure of Treasure. He worked at Konami before 1992, contributing to games in the Contra and Probotector series, before leading the exodus that created Treasure in October 1992. His motivation was explicitly creative: Konami's corporate structure left too little room for the kind of action game he wanted to make.

Maegawa directed Gunstar Heroes (1993) and has served as CEO and lead programmer throughout Treasure's existence. His design sensibility is visible across the catalogue: a preference for physical weight in character movement, inventive enemy AI, and boss encounters that feel like designed events rather than mechanical obstacles. He has given relatively few public interviews, making those that exist - on the genesis of Gunstar Heroes and the design of Treasure's boss encounters - particularly valuable primary sources.

The Konami exodus was not about dissatisfaction with games as such; it was about the gap between the games Maegawa's team could see and the games the corporate pipeline would produce. Treasure was founded to close that gap.

Hiroshi Iuchi

Programmer — Director — Designer

Hiroshi Iuchi is responsible for two of the most formally significant shoot-'em-ups in the genre's history: Radiant Silvergun (1998) and Ikaruga (2001/2003). Both were designed and programmed by Iuchi; the second is also credited to him as composer.

Iuchi's design philosophy is one of deliberate constraint. Radiant Silvergun replaced the conventional power-up model with seven permanent weapon types: no randomness, no temporary upgrades, only accumulated familiarity with fixed tools. Ikaruga took this further - the polarity-switching mechanic is a binary system from which all complexity emerges. There are two ship states, two bullet types, one switching action. The depth is not in the rules but in their interaction across the five chapters.

The polarity concept evolved directly from Silhouette Mirage's attribute system and Radiant Silvergun's approach to sustained skill accumulation. Iuchi has described the design as an attempt to build a system where a player's improvement is always visible to themselves - absorbing bullets becomes a display of mastery, not just survival. His work at Treasure stands as a sustained argument for formal precision in action game design.

Iuchi is also credited on Bangai-O (1999) and contributed to Astro Boy: Omega Factor (2003).

Norio Hanzawa

Composer — Gunstar Heroes (1993)

Norio Hanzawa composed the music for Gunstar Heroes (1993), one of the most celebrated Mega Drive soundtracks. The score matches the game's tone precisely - kinetic, aggressive, coloured with the fire-orange urgency of the visual design.

Treasure's musical language across the catalogue is not uniform: each title brought different composers, each with a distinct approach. Hitoshi Sakimoto composed Radiant Silvergun (1998), bringing the orchestral sensibility he would later develop on Final Fantasy XII. Hiroshi Iuchi composed the Ikaruga score himself - an unusual arrangement that tied the game's sonic and mechanical identity to a single creative voice. Hideki Hashimoto composed Guardian Heroes (1996).

The diversity of composers reflects Treasure's project-by-project approach to collaboration. There was no house sound, only a commitment to matching the music to the game's specific identity. The Gunstar Heroes soundtrack, Norio Hanzawa's Mega Drive work, remains the most immediately recognisable entry point into Treasure's sonic catalogue.

Additional Key Staff

Programmers — Artists — Designers

Treasure's small size meant that key credits often overlapped. Mitsuru Hanzawa (no relation to Norio Hanzawa) is credited as a programmer on Gunstar Heroes (1993), Alien Soldier (1995), and Guardian Heroes (1996) - spanning the Mega Drive and Saturn eras. Hideyuki Suganami contributed to multiple titles including Bangai-O and Guardian Heroes.

The studio's founding staff of approximately thirty people produced a body of work between 1993 and 2004 that no studio of comparable size has matched for genre range, mechanical ambition, and critical recognition. Credit pages for each game are available via MobyGames.