Treasure Hunter G

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Treasure Hunter G is a 1996 turn-based tactical role-playing game made by Sting Entertainment and published by Square for the Super Famicom in Japan. The game blends two styles of play: adventuring and combat. In the adventure mode, you explore towns, forests, dungeons, castles and other fantasy locations to meet allies and enemies while trying to stop the Dark Lord from reviving Bone Dino and destroying the world.

Combat happens on a grid. Characters move and attack using Action Points, with items, spells, and traps also available. Action Points rise as the game goes on, letting you plan bigger moves. The story follows Red, Blue, Rain, and Ponga as they try to stop the Dark King, who is released when a treasure hunter seeks a treasure.

The soundtrack was created by seven members of the Sting Symphony, including Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata. The character sprites are pre-rendered from 3D models, which lets them show eight directions instead of just four, a technique similar to Donkey Kong Country and some other games of the era.

Treasure Hunter G released on May 24, 1996, and was Square’s last game published for the Super Famicom. The 86-track soundtrack was released by NTT Publishing on June 9, 1996. The game came to the Wii Virtual Console in Japan on December 25, 2007.

Reception was mixed to positive: Famitsu gave it 31 out of 40, and GameFan gave high scores. In 2011, 1up.com named it a must-play SNES import, noting its pre-rendered graphics, story reminiscent of Chrono Trigger, and combat similar to Shining Force.