Suganami and Yaida were main programmers for Contra III: https://www.mobygames.com/game/snes/con ... alien-warsSumez wrote:Surprised to still see these "treasure worked on all of these games before forming treasure" speculations, yet it's not too long ago I last time saw someone claiming both Hard Corps and Rocket Knight came from Treasure people, even though both of those games were developed after Treasure was formed.
I've seen no signs of any Treasure employees filling any major roles in any Castlevania or Contra games. Honestly, the only Konami game that seems to feature any relevant constellation of future Treasure people would be Bucky O'Hare (the NES one), but you can easily see how that game would segue into Gunstar Heroes, too.
Maegawa was main programmer for Castlevania Adventure: https://www.mobygames.com/game/castleva ... -adventure
Yaida second programmer for Super Castlevania IV: https://www.mobygames.com/game/super-castlevania-iv
and then, like you said, Hiroshi Iuchi main character designer for Bucky O'hare: https://www.mobygames.com/game/bucky-ohare_
(Castlevania Adventure also featured Treasure composer Norio Hanzawa as one of the three "sound creators" and Kimura as one of the two graphics designers)
This interview from 1997 describes Maegawa's perspective: https://web.archive.org/web/20040826185 ... iews.htm#1
And this interview he is translated to say "I Just couldn't stand making more sequels" and he lists Konami stuff they worked on.Masato Maegawa is a lively character, hammering out words at the same blistering rate as firepower spews from characters' weaponry in his company’s action-led games. He explains how Treasure was created five
years ago and founded on a vision "just to create great games," describing how this vision flew in the face of corporate Japanese publishing where few risks are taken and "certain rules" must to be strictly adhered to. This
desire for personal autonomy rose from years working under such a regime -- many of Treasure’s core employees (including Maegawa-san) previously worked for Konami.
Maegawa-san graduated from university eight years ago and immediately joined Konami as a programmer. It was here that he programmed the Game Boy version of Dracula Densetsu (Castlevania), a game he is quick to point out was "not very good" -- true in some respects, but given that
the game found its way into more than two million Nintendo handhelds worldwide, an example of Japanese modesty. The Super NES classic Castlevania IV is another title in which Treasure’s staff played a part.
https://archive.org/details/Gamefan_Vol ... 9/mode/2up
Maegawa: "Basically, Konami is a huge Company, so you cannot create games freely. Konami’s big titles are TMNT, castlevania etc..I just couldn't stand making more sequels, but in order to drive sales sequels must always be made. When I presented my idea for Gunstar Heroes they said "no, it will not sell''. You see, they only want the sure thing because they are such a high profile company."
(...)
"Yes, lately all I see are sequels, or translations of popular arcade games. It is really sad. Consumers are in pursuit of quality and original game designs, but no many third parties are doing them. We are going to develop original games only! To sum it up, we present ourselves a challenge to do new things in the action platform category' we would like to be the company that makes the Sega Genesis and Mega Drive number 1. We will think of a what would be the most fun, and then develop it"
He also talks about the ease of using the 68000 there and that it is suitable for the boss animations they wanted to do.Maegawa: "Almost everyone is from Konami, there previous titles include; Qix*, Bucky 0 Hare, and The Simpsons for arcade
and Castlevania 4, Contra 3 and Axelay for the Super Famicom"
*Edit, presumably he meant Quarth
"But the Genesis has a 68000 processor, which is very easy for programmers to work with. I was a programmer for years, making games for the SNES, and I can tell you, the hardware is a pain in the butt. If consumers look at a still shot, they may think SNES is better, but actually, if you tried to put Gunstar Heroes onto the SNES there would be no way. See those bosses?, on the SNES they would slow way down, that movement requires sooo much computation. It could only be done on the Sega hardware."