This is the version of Aladdin I grew up with and it was always my favorite. Now that I also playe the SNES version I actually have to admit that that one is more fun.

I still really like the Mega Drive version, the graphics are absolutely beautiful for a Mega Drive game and the sword play in this one is really fun but the platforming is where it's a little big lackluster. Doesn't feel nearly as good as on the SNES version. I will still always have very fond memories of this game and it's definitely still worth playing!

The only notable thing about this game is the little trivia of "wow, Disney animators themselves worked on the sprites!" - and yeah, the sprites look pretty damn good. That's it though.

Comparing this to the Capcom-developed counterpart on the SNES is frankly an embarassment - Mega Drive Aladdin has worse backgrounds, worse music (compare the Genie level on both games, holy shit) and exponentially worse controls and gameplay. Having a sword instead of jumping on enemies sounds cooler in theory, but in practice, the sword just plain sucks. On top of that, platforming feels clunky, enemies have questionable placement, level design is just kinda strange...

It's just not a good time to me, and it's mind-boggling that this game has a better reputation than the SNES one. How.

For years, it was always so strange to me to hear that this was one of the most beloved licensed games of all time. When my family started exploring retro gaming (what would have been retro circa '06, anyway), we mostly went all-in on Nintendo consoles, so my experience with 16-bit Disney was limited to SNES games. Most of the time, the difference was negligible (Lion King, Jungle Book, etc) - but then there was Aladdin. I always thought SNES Aladdin (from what I saw of my brother playing it) was fine. Nowhere near as good as Maui Mallard or anything, but perfectly acceptable. Far from what everyone else was saying about it.

But of course, SNES Aladdin is a different beast from Genesis Aladdin. And while I owe Capcom's efforts on SNES a revisit, I definitely get the hype around Virgin Interactive's Aladdin. I'm not as head-over-heels for it as a lot of folks - a simple consequence of playing it late, and it having to measure up against my beloved Maui Mallard - but it is still a good time.

The main draw is of course the presentation. Getting actual Disney animators to help with the spritework doesn't represent any technological leaps forward, but it did much to show what was possible for games of the time, particularly when backed by big talent. Aladdin himself looks GREAT, as do many of the enemies and backgrounds. It's neat to see how much of the movie naturally lends itself to platforming sequences; in particular, the "Friend Like Me" sequence is a suuuuper fun interpretation, with its loopy platforming and environments. Audio for that matter is great as well, with nice covers of movie music and a great original composition in "Arab Rock".

I do think the game is a bit lopsided as an adaptation. It's fine enough to expand upon getting to the Cave of Wonders, but the entire second and third acts of the movie are reduced to individual stages! I guess there wasn't a whole lot that could be done to make those interesting as platformer segments? Jasmine is shockingly absent for much of the adventure - like, we couldn't even have a quick "A Whole New World" sequence? Ah, well.

"The Escape" is a harsh level, a completely dickish wall with some leap of faith platforming, but you hardly need me to say that. I love love love "Rug Ride", though, very much appreciate that that level's functionally optional. Sort of exploring either extreme of the infamous "Can't Wait to be King" level from Virgin's later Lion King title.

I do owe Virgin's other efforts with Disney properties a revisit (I understand Jungle Book holds up pretty well), but I suspect Aladdin will end up the runaway winner. Lion King is a game I love in spite of itself, but Aladdin is just a rock-solid title all around. Good stuff.

I think the Aladdin war should be like some kinda personality test on what it says about you as a gamer. If you saw my review of the other Aladdin, you'd see I prefer the SNES one.

For example, Aladdin for the Genesis' strong point is that its animation was done by professional Disney animators. The game is definitely beautiful and the movements have so much personality to them. You can even detect strong secondary motion which still wasn't very common in sprites at the time. The cutscenes also have portraits of the characters that are very expressive. The only fault for the visuals I have are that the bats are way too small, and for some reason they made parrots random enemies when Iago is a major character in the movie and even a boss in this game.

The other major difference is that Aladdin has a sword here. It doesn't amount to an awful lot in the grand scheme of things as you can still throw Apples and that's the better move 99% of the time, especially against bosses (Even Snake Jafar who has a safespot if you switch phases while he is completely off-screen) While we're talking about Al, he doesn't speed up right away, and if he goes too fast, he'll slide before stopping which is a bit frustrating. Hitboxes of platforms and enemies are also tricky, as they will either feel too accurate to the image or fairly off like certain platforms.

There are also camera issues where Al can get too far close to the right. This can be solved by turning left and then turning back right, but it came up enough for me to notice it. This was likely fixed in the Final Cut version of the latest rerelease.


The levels, as eh as they are for gameplay purposes, do lift a lot of elements from the movie, especially in the Agrabah Rooftop level where most of the things presented in the song segment show up in the game. Both games are faithful but you still love to see it so I will still mention it here.

The music pales when recreating the film's soundtrack as the Genesis soundchip just wasn't built for it, but it was good enough to get me humming the songs all over again. Prince Ali plays on level 1 while One Jump Ahead plays on Stage 3 which feels out of order. The original songs work well as they were made with the Genesis in mind, I like Escape the Cave of Wonders and Jafar's Palace myself.

The level that compiles all these problems into a package is probably the Sultan's Dungeon. It's a bunch of dark blues, precise timing platforming with wonky collisions, the goddamn bats that blend into the background so you're bound to take a hit, and the maze-like design...I'd rather not do that again. Not exclusive to the Genesis version is the unfairness of the Rug Ride while escaping the Cave of Wonders which sucks in both versions.

Some people prefer this version, that's fine, but I prefer the SNES one for how it plays. You can't go wrong with either version of Aladdin however so while I'd recommend the other one more, you can't go wrong with the Genesis either.

Aladdin for the Sega Genesis is one of the best games to ever release for said system. While the Super Nintendo version of the game is great in it's own right and is a game that I consider to be severely underrated, it cannot be denied how excellently crafted it's counterpart is.

To get the obvious out of the way, the visuals are absolutely gorgeous, which is what you'd expect when Disney's own talented animation team from the 90's worked on the game. Everything flows so smoothly together and gives the world a feeling of liveliness and charisma on par with that of the movie.

Speaking of on par with the movie, the adaptations of the songs from the film to the Genesis' soundfont are done nearly flawlessly, which while yes results in less of the creative liberties that the SNES had when adapting it's fair share of film tracks, allows for not only greater variety of music from the score, but greater fidelity as well. The original songs here are also quite catchy, with the theme of the Sultan's Palace specially being quite the bop.

Gameplay wise, I find the core gameplay of Aladdin plowing through the 8 main stages the game provides to be amazingly excecuted, with the sword serving as quite a useful weapon for melee combat and probably serving as your preferred weapon for most of the game, yet the apples serving as a nice alternative that never truly feels useless despite it's admitted situationality. Level design wise it's not as strong as the Super Nintendo version, but what is here is still good in it's own right and presents a decent challenge even upon multiple replays.

My main issue however comes down to all the side stuff in the game, which while yes, optional for the most part, still detracts from my overall enjoyment. Both of the Abu stages are bullshit trail and error sequences where you only get a single shot and you don't get them you either have to restart the whole game again just to get another shot at them, or use the debug menu to access them, Rug Ride, while a fine bonus level, posessess the same issue of being way to trail-and-error dependant and having sections where it just straight up doesn't tell you where to go next and leaves it up to guessing, which is just not good game design whatsoever, and the bosses are just kinda...there. The last one is actually pretty good and I like the way it makes you use the apples as projectiles towards Jafar, but the rest feel more like filler than anything.

Also, while I did play the original Genesis version for this review, it's worth noting that if you want to play this game nowadays, you should get the Final Cut as well as the color improvement rom hacks, both of which add tons of nice little stuff that helps make the game better overall.

At the end of the day however, this game is still amazing, and deserves it's reputation as being one of the best games on the console.

If an old beggar tells you to find the fragmented pieces of a golden scarab in the middle of the desert, do not listen to him! This is a man who would see your Summah ruined. Even as we speak, I am trapped in a cave of proverbial "wonders," and yet I do not see one surfboard, no snow cones, and not a single boardwalk in sight. I am not havin' a Summah!

I suppose I brought this on myself. Suppose it's because I touched that copy of Aladdin for the Sega Genesis even though I was told what disaster it would bring. But you have to understand, I spent long hot Oregonian Summahs playing this game, watching the Aladdin TV show, wearing out the tape on my copy of Aladdin 2 starring Dan Castellaneta, walking the streets in my Aladdin shirts and petitioning my mom to rename me Aladdin Aladdin, because that's two Aladdins which is of course better than one. I am a being of flesh and blood, imperfect and susceptible to temptation.

Disney's Aladdin occupies the same headspace for me as Mickey Mania. Both are incredible looking games that utterly bested me as a kid. However, unlike Mickey Mania, I never have been able to beat Aladdin without relying upon save states and - in the case of this last playthrough - cheats. Much like my current predicament, everything's great until I get to the Cave of Wonders, at which point the game starts throwing bottomless pits all over the place, introduces other one-hit-kill hazards, and begins asking you to land jumps on platforms that appear and disappear with inconsistent timing.

Even the bonus game is stacked against you. You can collect Genie tokens for additional spins on a slot machine, which allows you to earn extra lives and other items between levels. The slots don't appear to be on a set rotation and are instead randomized, making it very difficult to not land on Jafar, who will steal all your tokens. So pretty much every time you play this you'll get laughed at by Jafar immediately and sent to the next stage. This is hardly an indictment against Aladdin as a whole, but I do find it comical how brutal this bonus game is. Like why even put this in here if David Perry wasn't willing to give the player a fighting chance?

Now, I've been told I'm a weak man for finding Toy Story to be maliciously hard, so I can't hang all my criticisms on difficulty alone. And I don't need to, because of the two main Aladdin tie-ins (I'm going to pretend the NES version isn't real), the Genesis version is the weaker title. I know this is up for debate, but in my unassailable opinion the Genesis Aladdin suffers from bland level design, insipid bosses built out of obligation to platformer norms, and a depressingly gnarled rendition of the film's soundtrack that is totally lacking in inspiration. Level gimmicks are no fun to use and Aladdin's attacks lack punch, falling short of feeling satisfying. All the rhythm, bounce, and impact of the SNES version is missing here.

It almost goes without saying, but presentation carries the entire experience. It's a well-known fact that Disney had a small team of animators hand draw each frame of animation for this game, resulting in a very authentic and fluid look. While the gameplay is nowhere near as good as the SNES version, the inverse is true of Aladdin's aesthetic design, which is so far in the Genesis' corner that Nintendo panicked and started pushing for more technically impressive games in order to compete. Every little touch is great, from fun background gags like chained up skeletons wearing Mickey Mouse ears in the dungeon level to Genie shooting Iago's ass dead during the Sega splash screen. The playfulness of the movie is captured perfectly. It's just a shame that level of care and passion doesn't resonate in how Aladdin plays.

BUT IS IT A SUMMAH GAME?

As always, we must determine where Aladdin falls on the Summah Index Scale. Unfortunately, I am trapped in a cave and unable to access my equipment, which means I had to improvise a small series of experiments with what I have available to me. These tests included dipping Aladdin into molten lava to determine its heat threshold and burying it to see if I could relocate the game by sensing its Summah vibes psychically.

Aladdin for the Sega Genesis scored uh... like a 4.7? I didn't actually perform any tests. I ate the cart for sustenance and now I'm severely constipated. I also ate a monkey and a rug, so I'm not doing so great.

Ah shit, that old beggar was David Perry in disguise, wasn't he?

I gotta say, this game did not impress me. The only thing particularly notable about it is its development history, and the whole "worked with real Disney animators" stuff.

The actual game itself is super screen crunched, tons of weirdly placed enemies, and clunky platforming. Why even give Aladdin a sword if it's going to suck so bad?

Honestly, I'm pretty disappointed in this game, after I've heard so much raving about it.

it was fine, i dont really feel too strongly. fun enough to at least play through. a couple weird platforming things where i would fall through platforms that it looked like i should have landed on, especially weird during the last level in a certain segment where i would land on the edge of a platform, stand still for a split second, then just fall through the floor and die. i feel like this game was a bit overhyped for me, i always saw people talk it up so much and it just kinda seems like a generic unoffensive platformer for the genesis