Developed by Sting Entertainment and published by Squaresoft in 1996, Treasure Hunter G is a tactical Japanese Role-Playing Game that features exploration, turn-based combat and a fantasy-based storyline that mixes magic and technology. It was released in Japan only, but a fan translation makes it playable in English.

The opening scenes allow you to name two characters, who you play, and two more join shortly afterwards. As the story unfolds you discover that the protagonist’s father is hiding a secret about his adventurer past, and that a great evil has been unleashed upon the world. As you investigate your father’s journals it leads you on a colourful journey into wonder and danger, and a realisation that you’re on a collision course with the evil force…

Treasure Hunter G takes place in three main fields of play: the first and most common are the exploration sections, which feature scrolling overhead landscapes; lots of places to interact with and search, and many characters to talk to and things to do – this is basically the main stage of play. Secondly there’s the overworld, or “world map” view, where you move your titchy characters over large swathes of ground to reach individual locations. And thirdly there are the battlefields where combat happens.

Combat takes place on a grid system and each party member can move and attack in relation to how many Action Points (ACT) they have. The grid is divided into different colours and each colour uses uses up a certain number of ACT. An important component of this is the ability of each character to rotate to face a certain direction. Pressing the ‘L’ and ‘R’ button turns a character on the spot (and crucially doesn’t use up ACT), and generally they have to be facing in the right direction to attack an enemy, or to set a trap in front of them. Techniques, such as magic and traps (such as teleport, delusion and landmine) use up Special Points (SP), that are limited in the same way Hit Points (HP) are. As is the case in many Final Fantasy-style JRPGs: HP, SP and learned techniques increase as your characters grow.

Treasure Hunter G has a well-judged difficulty curve. Initial battles are easy, but as you progress they require more thought to win. For example: some of the later battles can’t be won by just steaming in and attacking; you have to use your own teleporter trap on your characters, in order to get them nearer to the more dangerous monsters quicker, which I thought was cool. And the game is full of little puzzles like that, to test your cleverness and cunning.

As well as the beautiful pixel art graphics and rich soundtrack, one thing that stands out in Treasure Hunter G is the humour. The game is well-written – better written than most JRPGs – and the English translation is so good that it manages to capture the humour well. There was one thing in this game that really made me laugh, and that was the fact that wearing “smelly” versions of armour pieces (boots, for example) often causes confusion in battle, so are best not worn! When it first happens, it might shock you (like it did me), and then it’s explained by an in-game character not long after finding your first piece of smelly equipment. Which is very funny.

I’ve seen Treasure Hunter G described as “the best Squaresoft game that never got released in the West“, and although I can’t concur with that (because there are so many good ones), I will say that it’s an excellent game, with superb presentation and game mechanics. At times, I felt like there was maybe a bit too much searching and not enough combat, but that’s just because I like grinding, and many of the fights in this happen in specific places. Yes, there are areas that re-spawn monsters and can be fought over and over, but combat isn’t particularly fast, so re-fighting lower-levelled monsters can sometimes be a chore.

Overall, though, Treasure Hunter G is a must-play game if you like obscure JRPGs – particularly Squaresoft ones. It’s got wonderful presentation, excellent gameplay, dramatic storytelling, and lots of detail that will absorb you for many hours of enjoyable play.

More: Treasure Hunter G on Wikipedia
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