Last week my girlfriend and I caught the live movie adaptation of Aladdin in theaters. We enjoyed it, although both of us prefer the animated film. Seeing Aladdin on the big screen instantly brought to mind the time when Capcom, over 25 years ago, released Aladdin on the Super Nintendo. “Oh no, not another licensed video game!” Some might think from the outset. And really, history would have your back as many licensed games were seemingly more miss than hit more than a quarter of a century ago. Thankfully, Capcom incubated Aladdin with nearly as much maternal care as Disney bestowed upon their animated film. That means top notch animation, plenty of humor to keep things lighthearted and entertaining, and backed it all up with an incredibly authentic Middle Eastern atmosphere. Thus, what you have here is a strong example of the platforming genre based off 1992’s most successful film.
NEVER HAD A FRIEND LIKE ME
Aladdin roared into theaters the day before Thanksgiving ’92 (November 25, 1992 for those keeping score at home) and grossed over 500 million worldwide! It was met with undying fanfare. The song “A Whole New World” won an Oscar at the 1993 Academy Awards. The end credits boast a whopping 513 people! It was the first Disney film to show a belly button. Aladdin was based, believe it or not, on a cross between Michael J. Fox and Tom Cruise. Also, did you know that Aladdin once killed 40 thieves? [That was Ali Baba, you fool -Ed.]
![[Hmmm, those facts sound oddly familiar... -Ed.]](http://rvgfanatic.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/AladdinEx-e1560228607233.jpg)
Aladdin was such a smash hit that he had his own animated series as part of the classic Disney Afternoon lineup back during the early mid ’90s. I was a pretty big fan of the TV series. If you don’t remember the Disney Afternoon, it was essentially the cartoon version of TGIF. The Disney Afternoon aired Mondays through Fridays from 3 to 5 PM. Perfect for veggin’ out right after school for a couple blissful hours. Oh they don’t make them like how they used to, that’s fer damn sure! Needless to say, Capcom had a lot to live up to when they set their sights on adapting Aladdin to the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. But if anyone could pull it off back in those days, it was the Big C.
THE ADVENTURES OF ABU
THE STORY GOES…
… THE DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH!
THE BASICS
THE MARKETPLACE
Sprinting across the tops — high above the heads of enemies — looks great, but Aladdin’s movement has a certain herky jerkiness. It’s not a big issue but it does take a second to adjust to.
Aimed properly, you can bounce off a bad guy’s head and in one seamless motion stick the landing on a nearby platform. Pretty satisfying it is.
Press down to fall on the villain’s head and vanquish him. There is a sort of Prince of Persia feel to this game.
![More fun than a barrel [snip -Ed.]](http://rvgfanatic.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Aladdin7.png)
![[I always knew the monkey was smarter -Ed.]](http://rvgfanatic.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Aladdin8-e1560222789809.jpg)
![[Truly, the brains of the operation -Ed.]](http://rvgfanatic.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Aladdin9-e1560222816211.jpg)
![[You and me both, Abu. You and me both -Ed.]](http://rvgfanatic.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Aladdin24.jpg)
![[Us too! -Super Play staff]](http://rvgfanatic.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/AladdinEx4-e1560228841794.jpg)
THE CAVE OF WONDERS
I rather like this stage quite a bit. Use your athletic acrobatics to maneuver your way across spiky pits and such. Good stuff.
Use apples to send pesky bats away. And what the hell is a delectable piece of meat such as that doing out in the wide open? It’ll spoil! Guess you better gobble it up then before it does!
Leaping off enemies and platforms doesn’t always go as you intend it to. Thankfully, it’s mostly a case of something you did that went awry, as opposed to flat out poor controls.
If you manage to survive this, you’ll run into a rather magical friend.
Carpet, in theory, could whisk you to safety, but where’s the fun in that? Nope, you must brave through this auto scrolling stage on your own.
After a couple head scratching stages where you’re forced to travel over murky waters and skin scorching lava without the aid of Magic Carpet, it finally decides to lend a hand, er, corner? Hey, better late than never!
Arguably the game’s most adrenaline-fueled level, nothing quickens the pulse quite like riding on Magic Carpet with your girl while doing your best to evade the sizzling molten lava that’s right on your tail!
INSIDE THE GENIE’S LAMP
Genie’s stage takes you to a cloud-filled universe that’s well out of this world. How befitting of a genie! You suddenly find yourself doing pull ups on cloudy wisps in a strange land that’s NOT AT ALL egotistical…
In classic Capcom fashion, landing on those Genie platforms will make the Big G frown for as long as you’re on it. Otherwise, the blue bastard’s full of cheesy grins.
THE PYRAMID
BONUS LEVEL: MAGIC CARPET RIDE
For my money, this is by far and away the greatest moment in the entire game. The sights and sounds — perfection personified. Based on the classic scene from the movie, it even replicates the “A Whole New World” song! Sans lyrics of course, but it’s a near perfect rendition otherwise. The whole damn thing is almost enough to make even the most hardened warrior feel all warm and tingly inside. Don’t take my word for it, watch it and listen to it here!
![A WHOLE NEW WORLD! [Don't you dare... -Ed.]](http://rvgfanatic.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Aladdin82.gif)
JAFAR’S PALACE
GENIE!
On the whole, Aladdin is a pretty easy game. It’s got a few tough spots, but with a password system in place and plenty of extra lives to be had, it’s something that the average gamer should be able to polish off without too much hardship.
Capcom’s classic continue screens, er, continue with Aladdin. Pull the yes one and Genie will flash you a satisfied grin.
But yank on the no one and watch the poor sap sulk and frown.
GENNY!
For ages now, even to this day more than 25 years later, there has been a debate amongst gamers on which version is superior: the Genesis or Super Nintendo rendition of Aladdin. Both games are significantly different from one another, as Capcom developed the SNES one while Virgin Interactive did the Genesis one. The Genesis version emphasizes more action than platforming. Both games were highly praised in their own right, but consensus seems to favor the Genesis game slightly. Regardless of which version you think is better, you can’t go wrong with either one.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
Aladdin was well received by the critics. EGM gave it scores of 9, 8, 8 and 8. EGM’s sister publication, Super NES Buyer’s Guide, scored it 89, 86 and 85%. GameFan gave it ratings of 90, 90, 89 and 87%. Super Play rated it 81%. Most agreed on it being a fun and colorful platforming game by the ever trustworthy Capcom, who infused Aladdin with an admirable amount of care and respect to the source material. It’s not the most outstanding example of the genre on the SNES, but it’s certainly one of the better ones in the catalog.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
Aladdin is a quality platformer, but its two biggest flaws are that it’s too short and it teeters a bit too much on the easy side. Similar to Skyblazer, the levels are over right as I’m ready to sink my teeth into ‘em. The lack of enemies, not to mention the lack of enemy diversity, was also something of a disappointment. You can easily finish this game before you finish watching the animated movie! However, with a busy schedule that may include juggling relationships, kids and work, those two “flaws” aren’t the biggest indictments in the gaming world. I suppose that’s one way to look at it.
The graphics are splendid; they’re filled to the brim with detail, colors and parallax scrolling that seems to stretch on forever. The sound is pretty good, especially the renditions of the movie’s various themes. The SNES version of A Whole New World is my personal favorite and hits me in the feels every single time I hear its lovely jingle. Gameplay consists of your classic basics, sprinkled with a little Prince of Persia feel to it, complete with hanging from ledges with your pinkie fingers.
The control is generally solid but I do have a few gripes. Whenever you press left or right Aladdin will take a step (or two) in that direction. On small platforms this could cause him to slip every now and then, so be thankful for that hanging-on-the-ledge-with-your-pinkie business! Some handspring bounces off obstacles and enemies are also a bit tough to implement properly, particularly when it comes to needing several bounces in succession. Thankfully, such parts are few and far between. Mostly you’re just bouncing off one enemy or object at a time so it doesn’t adversely impact gameplay as much as one might fear. The control is definitely far from perfect but nothing you won’t quickly adjust to and manage. Those few niggles, however, are worth noting.
All in all, Aladdin is a fine platformer that deserves a spot in any SNES library. It does its source material a great deal of respect and is plain fun to play. It won’t last you long, or challenge you terribly much, but depending on one’s schedule and tolerance level, those things may be blessings or curses. Capcom could almost do no wrong back in the early-mid ’90s, and Aladdin is another solid example of such. Definitely and easily one of the better license games from the vaunted 16-bit era!
Graphics: 9
Sound: 8
Gameplay: 8
Longevity: 5.5
Overall: 8.0
Silver Award
Disney’s Aladdin, Capcom edition, is an enjoyably fun game while it lasts, short and easy though it may be, and as an adaptation I like how faithful it is to the movie to a point while occasionally taking liberties! =)
I like Aladdin’s smooth sense of agility and the overall polished nature of the gameplay, whether it be for him running, jumping, gliding, and hanging on to the ledge of a platform (which is such a huge saving grace during key instances, like in Brøderbund’s Prince of Persia), the visuals are vibrantly colorful and great to look at (I like the parallax scrolling looming across from the palace as you’re high up in Agrabah, the Cave of Wonders looks fantastic, and the Genie’s lamp segments are fun to look at) with Aladdin having smoothly fluid animation, the lighthearted Disney charm is well-implemented (I love how expressive Abu is, and how during one point in Genie’s lamp you can spot Abu clinging on to Carpet as it flies from a distance), I love this video game adaptation’s sweeping music by Yuki Iwai, Yūko Takehara, and Setsuo Yamamoto (the first Cave of Wonders’ relaxing theme and the pyramid theme’s mysterious nature, and I greatly enjoyed their renditions of “A Whole New World” and “Friend Like Me”, RIP Robin Williams) and I liked how they tried to capture the Alan Menken quality as best they could, and I like how Capcom’s Disney’s Aladdin had replay value depending on how many red gems you collected by the time you finished the game (provided you did it in one sitting) which gave you different-looking credits should you have gathered the majority of them and how you might uncover a secret or two after searching every nook and cranny.
Out of the six Disney Capcom games on the Nintendo 16-bit system, this was the first among them that I played, and there is a funny story about how I first played this take on Disney’s Aladdin: so over twenty years ago, one of my cousins owned a plug-and-play system which had a multitude of Famicom and NES games (at the time, I didn’t even know the majority of them were real until I learned about them from the internet years later) and I was surprised to see “Disney’s Aladdin” listed in one of their plug-and-plays which was a ROM hack of the Capcom game (not knowing at the time that it was originally, indeed, a Capcom game) and from what I recall I enjoyed playing that quite a bit (it was different from the Virgin version of Disney’s Aladdin I played on the Game Boy and on the PC growing up), the only downside was that if you lost a life once then the music stopped playing and it was possible to lose a life in the “A Whole New World” segment. On September 2005, there was a Hurricane called Rita that had my family and I evacuate from our home so (for the week that it lasted… our home was unaffected by it) we went to stay at a friend of my mother’s who lived several hours away from us and while we were there I played video games on the child’s SNES console: it was the first time I played HAL Laboratory’s Kirby’s Dream Course (which I was addicted to) and Kirby Super Star, Konami’s Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose!, Nintendo’s Mario Paint, and Capcom’s Disney’s Aladdin. Now, when I was a much younger kid, I do recall one time seeing its box one time my family and I went to a Toys R Us during one Summer (generally I went for Game Boy games) seeing its box, but not knowing anything about the console wars at the time I was under the impression that the Disney’s Aladdin on the Nintendo 16-bit system was more or less akin to the version I played on the Game Boy and PC by Virgin. I was mistaken, as I discovered when I played it on the SNES during that week-long stay, as I was surprised that it was like the NES ROM hack I played mere years prior (and ended up enjoying a lot more, especially with the ability to run).
I remember reading many years how Shinji Mikami, who was also the designer of Who Framed Roger Rabbit on the Game Boy and the Nintendo 16-bit adaptation of Goof Troop, in a retrospective interview regarding Capcom’s Disney’s Aladdin how he had some reservations about the take he worked on and how he wished he was involved in the Virgin version with the primary reasoning being how Aladdin doesn’t wield a scimitar in-game like he does on the cover; it’s always fascinating reading about the insight behind the development of certain titles of yesteryear, what they’re most pleased about, what their fondest memories working on it are, or what they could’ve done differently if given the opportunity.
Which 16-bit version of Disney’s Aladdin do I find to be better, though? Well, that depends on the mood, really, they’re both fun games in their own right with their own sets of pros and cons: the Virgin take is fun with its intricately designed (occasionally open-ended) areas and alternation between apple tossing and scimitar swinging with Disney quality animation and the Capcom version is good fun while it lasts with a vibrantly colorful aesthetic and polished controls (of the two, though, I much prefer Carpet’s entrance here) as you acrobatically hop and bop off of enemies.
Merry Christmas, Steve, and once again congratulations on becoming a father! =D Take care!
To each their own
A super belated Merry Christmas StarBoy, and happy new year! I appreciate your well wishes and your congrats on me becoming a father. It’s been super crazy busy here, which is why sadly I haven’t been able to update since late November
Anyway, thanks for sharing your detailed insights as always on these vintage 16-bit gems 
Wishing you a very prosperous 2023!