A playthrough of ASC’s 1991 platformer for the NES, Treasure Master.
Played through the entire game, including the secret final stage. The serial number and the password inputted at the beginning give me access to that final stage - if you don’t put them in, or if you put in something that the game doesn’t recognize, the game ends upon finishing the fifth stage. The serial number comes from the game itself, and the password was revealed on MTV in April 1992 to kick off the advertised contest.
Treasure Master was an interesting concept, to be sure. Rather than selling itself on its merits as a game, ASC sponsored a heavily promoted contest that would allow players to win any number of prizes, the top prizes being a choice between a check for $10,000, a “fantasy sports event,“ “fantasy rock concert,“ or “fantasy A/V room.“ Second prize was a SNES, and third was a huge, poster-sized award.
As far as the game itself goes, Treasure Master is pretty neat. It’s a fairly standard platformer, but it adds in puzzle elements more akin to an adventure game - there are a number of events that require you to use an item in a specific way to open the way forward. The game play is overall somewhat unremarkable, but it is solid and quite a bit of fun figuring it all out.
What always appealed to me about the game was the graphics and the sound. Everything is hyper-colorful and the spritework has a lot of character to it. I also appreciated the hideous early 90s fashion your character is clad in, with a matching orange tank top and shorts set topped off by a neon green ball cap. The music is wholly excellent - it is a Tim Follin work, after all. Boy was that remixed Starsky & Hutch theme was a surprise!
Treasure Master is a cool footnote in NES history, and it’s quite amusing game to waste a few hours with. It’s not terribly long nor difficult, but it is fun while it lasts.
Game on!
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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