Welcome to Monday’s Retro Corner Reviews and we tackle a license game from Disney based on the 1992 version of Aladdin. During 1993, Virgin Interactive released their version of Aladdin on the Genesis as competition to Capcom’s Super NES edition. Unlike on Super NES; the Genesis title wasn’t a port, but its own game created by the Disney hired studio. If you didn’t know Aladdin on this system sold 2 million copies and is among the console's bestselling titles. No doubt the massive success of the movie is what prompted many Genesis owners to buy the game. Just like the film, it follows the plot as Aladdin must go through the Arabian kingdom to save Jasmin and stop Jafar from his evil plan. Sega's version plays nothing like the other console titles even though it’s still under the action platformer genre. Back then Capcom had a strong hold on Disney IPs from Duck Tales to Mickey’s titles. Virgin was the first to step it up and start competing with their own Disney developed games. Will this take on Aladdin hold strong against Capcom’s experience? Gameplay For gameplay not designed from any established studio like Capcom or Konami really did a great job bringing Aladdin into action. In fact, Virgin Interactive breaks that usual corporatist model that we see from LJN in most license titles. Right off the bat you will notice Aladdin wields a sword to attack. I did see some Prince of Persia style sword using here, but the best part is you can deflect projectiles back at the enemies. Aladdin also has a secondary attack with throwing apples, and it helps with using both long and short range hits. Similar on the Super NES edition, every level doesn't have a boss, and your only task is getting through the stage’s obstacles. The bosses each had their patterns of attacking which is the strongest thing about the gameplay. Virgin went the extra mile and provided those modern mechanics found in most 16-bit platformers. Genie jars which are tall blue vases act as check points and the player will respawn at the last one touched. It’s a double edge sword and the level design can get tedious and cheap with timed actions. The idea reminds of what THQ did in Star Wars: Apprentice of the Force during the Death Star trench portion. Now, is this as bad as that license game? No, it’s not but a studio shouldn’t rely on frequent check points to make up for the cheap difficulty. Its telling when designers don’t use the Nintendo standard with having balanced challenges and one check point at the middle of each stage. Even though most mechanics from Prince of Persia weren't programmed into this version, I still enjoyed those small abilities. Being able to deflect an enemy's physical strikes from the guards and even hit back their projectiles helped in many ways. The second image is one of those timed action portions and this is the boulder chase. The chase weren't be the problem if jumping at the end wasn't so difficult. On top of that, why doesn't the Invincibility code work on these boulders but it does on every other hazard. Now, I knew the inexperience from this studio would play a factor in a few key steps being a problem. The mechanics here are not as fluent as they should feel like as you can’t jump on enemies or grab ledges. For the most part Aladdin does move fast and uses the scimitar in a nimble manner. However, it's surprising that Virgin Interactive didn’t take notes from Prince of Persia as it’s a game they could’ve easily taking inspiration from. Of course, they took notes with the sword use in a couple of instances but because of the limited mechanics made the difficulty an issue. The first three levels are balanced in several ways between the enemy placement and hazards. Once you reach the Dungeon stage the difficulty spikes up and there were many times it made me want to throw the controller. In that same level there were these blocks that came out of the wall and the player had to time their jumps to pass to the next part of the stage. In many instances I would miss the timing even when getting it right. That’s nothing compared to the Cave of Wonders’ lava level and those boulders that chase the player got me most of the time. The next issue came from the boss battles and all were very predictable with doing a few things. Seriously, all I had to do was spam throwing apples from a distance while avoiding the attacks to win. There are no obstacles to go through while fighting them except dodge and spam them until winning. It did make the battle with Jafar anti-climactic because I doubt a supreme sorcerer would easily get taken out by apples. Rating: 8.0/10 Graphics/Presentation I must give this to these talented artists as for once a studio was able to one up Capcom on visuals for a Disney title. The game looks fantastic and captured every magical feeling the film offered. The sprites’ animation is a thing of beauty as there are times, I forget this is a game. Virgin worked closely with the Disney artists to help design the sprites with both fluent animation and detailed visuals. An example comes from the guards and its enjoyable to see their idle positions based on their personalities. It’s even more funny watching the guards come at you when they cross those fire charred rocks and grabbed their feet from the pain. That was probably the best decision they made and really made the visuals shine the brightest compared to other license titles on the Genesis. The environments were just as good and captured everything you would see in the film. I don’t have a favorite, but each stage had some of the best tiniest of details put into them. The most notable things are the cameos from other Disney related characters. Within the dungeon stage, you will see Sebastian hanging from the wall and see a Pirates of the Caribbean reference on the ground level. As you can tell, Virgin went the extra mile with some of these sprites as seen with the small guard. If you deflect his dagger once at him this will cause his pants to drop in a comical manner. In the second image, I enjoyed these small cameos Virgin put in and its something Disney even did in the film. If there are any negative features, then it always comes from the picture having this overall dark tint. It just makes the colors seem less vibrant then they are supposed to come off. The Genesis’ hardware has a limit of 512 colors supported and as I always point out is a massive far cry from Super NES’s 30,000. The visuals are truly phenomenal as the studio made a 16-bit version of the film that nearly replicates its designs. However, don’t tell me they couldn’t get rid of that tint when I’ve seen titles like Sonic 3 and Phantasy Star IV have a clear picture. I can’t say the next one is really an issue and the music still has the monotone sound. It is the best third-party OST on the Genesis as only Sega knew how to work around its own hardware. When compared to Capcom’s soundtrack in their version, the Sega edition lacks that dynamic and magical feel. Listen to A Whole New World track from both games, and you notice the big difference in tone immediately. Virgin might have done a good job producing a good OST around a low quality sound chip, but the monotone kills it. Another thing this version suffers from is the lacking presentation. They only reduced it to words spoken between the characters in a desert background at night. While on Super NES, the scenes from the movie in a still form were used in-between the stages with Capcom recoloring them to fit the console’s tech. I doubt the Genesis’ limited colors prevented these developers for doing the same thing. Rating: 8.8/10 Features/Content As we went over many times when talking about license games, there are many of them that doesn't have much in content. Fortunately, there are cheat codes available to mess around with. By pausing the game and pressing a combination of buttons on the Option menu will give you access to the cheat menu. I can’t state enough how this has become a lost art in game design as no developer ever thinks of codes anymore. Virgin Interactive programmed a level select and like a traditional way will warp the player to any stage. Now, we can’t forget the infamous Invincibility and this legendary cheat is the gold standard of messing with the difficulty. For the bonus rounds, they are a timing mini game where the player can rack up more points or earn an extra life. The second one has you take control of Abu again and the player avoids projectiles from above until the bonus round ends or unless Abu gets hit once. I never like these special stages in any license game and Aladdin is no except to that. They feel tacked on in many cases, and I don’t really need these to rack up points and 1ups when the levels have plenty of them. The biggest problem to me is how there are only nine stages compared to the Super NES version’s nineteen. That’s not a matter of quality over quantity as Capcom did a much better job programming unique challenges then Virgin could. If I’m spending $49.99 on a new title it wasn’t going be for a game with several stages instead of a handful. Rating: 7.0/10 It might not be the traditional screen of cheats we normal see but I found this interesting that they included ROM's information. Not one time do I recall these developers from any era ever disclosing this kind of information. Now, if you are not familiar with activating the codes, Cheat Mode is Invincibility and Map View Mode let's the player see the entire stage without controlling Aladdin. Final Rating For a studio known for porting crappy license titles finally got their first home run. Virgin took inspiration from other games and created a unique experience in an area Capcom usually dominated. The gameplay had players face many of the film’s characters and their challenges while racking up points through each stage. The level design went beyond the usual crap found in most license games and Virgin truly shined with decent challenges. It's visuals were the highlight of the release and captured the magical appearance Disney is often known for. Its animation was truly the greatest as that’s expected when Virgin worked closely with Disney's animators. They didn’t stop there as the studio probably produced the best licensed OST the Genesis ever saw. However, a few issues hold this edition back in key features. Virgin’s inexperience caused them to make a mistake with the hit detection when using the scimitar. There were many times that Aladdin’s attacks should have connected without any issues. The next thing was some bad choices among half the stages, and it was always those timed challenges. I found myself constantly trying to get by as seen in the lava portion of the Cave of Wonders. The content is nearly bare bones as the only thing saving it from a low score is the cheat codes. With only nine levels is not enough to justify its $49.99 prices tag it once had at the time. When compared to Capcom’s efforts with producing 19 levels on the Super NES version tells me Virgin could’ve created more. Regardless of any issues, this is the best effort a studio has done to release a quality license title. Gameplay: 8.0/10 Graphics/Presentation: 8.8/10 Features/Content: 7.0/10 Final Rating: 8.2/10 Very Good
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Retro Gamer has over 25 years of gaming experience and played many classics since the Golden Age. She has been an avid fan since the day the NES graced her life and changed it forever.
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