Their first game, Gunstar Heroes (1993) on the Sega Genesis, was a critical success and established a creative and action-oriented design style that would continue to characterize their output.

Treasure founder and president Masato Maegawa dreamed of working in the video game industry when he was young and began learning computer programming in junior high school.

[2] The team felt consumers wanted original games,[2] and so they left Konami in 1992 to establish Treasure and continue development on Gunstar Heroes.

[7] Even though most of the staff made games for the Super NES at Konami, they wanted to develop Gunstar Heroes for the Sega Genesis because the system's Motorola 68000 microprocessor was necessary for the visuals and gameplay they were striving for.

[4] At first, they were not granted approval because they lacked a track record, but Sega instead contracted them to develop McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure (1993).

[5] North American magazine GameFan were enthralled with the game and secured the first English language interview with Treasure that year.

[8] Treasure continued to develop games for the Genesis for the remainder of the 16-bit era because of the system's smooth sprite movement, and grew a following among Sega fans.

[8] Gun Beat, a racing game they were developing for Sega's NAOMI arcade platform, was canceled with little explanation.

(2003) and Astro Boy: Omega Factor (2003), as well as GameCube games Wario World (2003) and Dragon Drive: D-Masters Shot (2003).

[8] Astro Boy: Omega Factor was co-developed with Hitmaker[20] and was critically praised for returning to Treasure's classic side-scrolling action style that had been missing from their recent output.

[11] Maegawa explained that his company experiences challenges in developing games based on licensed properties like Bleach, saying that the staff wants to be original but cannot detract too far from the source material and risk disappointing fans.

[11] In a 2011 interview, Maegawa explained that Treasure now uses middleware to develop games, no longer using custom programming to push the hardware to their maximum levels.

[11] The company was also putting an increased focus on rereleasing their back catalog as downloadable games on the Virtual Console, PlayStation Network, and Xbox Live.

[7][21] Maegawa has preferred to always keep the company small to keep an "independent-minded" mentality, and help the developers' personalities shine through their games.

[15][22] USgamer called them "one of Japan's pioneering indie developers" and explained the "sense of integrity" in their 1990s work that was not seen in other games of the era.

"[10] In 2005, 1UP.com called Treasure "one of Japan's most famous independent development houses [...] releasing some of the most finely crafted, creative, and offbeat action games the world has ever seen.

"[7] Because of the loyal fan base but low sales, prices of Treasure games such as Rakugaki Showtime and Radiant Silvergun have climbed on the secondary market.

[22][11] Their first game, Gunstar Heroes, established what 1UP.com called Treasure's key themes: "creativity, weirdness, and a tendency toward completely absurd levels of action.

[7] They explained that Treasure is "at the very cutting edge of artistic freedom, forging its own very particular path and creating a softography guided by nothing other than the whims of the creators.

"[11] The company is known for taking risks within established genres, borrowing conventional ideas and adding their own creative touches to create something new and innovative.