Disney's Aladdin (Virgin Games)

Disney's Aladdin is a video game released in 1993 and based off the critically acclaimed Disney film of the same name. It was developed by Virgin Games and Disney Software and published by Sega on Genesis/Mega Drive, and Virgin Interactive Entertainment on MS-DOS and Amiga. Virgin was also responsible for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy and Game Boy Color ports. It should be noted that this article will only deal with the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, MS-DOS and Amiga ports.

In 2019, Nighthawk Interactive released the Disney Classic Games: Aladdin and The Lion King game collection, which contains the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive version of Aladdin.

Plot
Loosely based off the movie, the game follows Aladdin in his quest to defeat the evil sorcerer Jafar and win the heart of Princess Jasmine.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Awesome graphics that makes it look like the characters and background are from an animated movie rather than digital sprites.
 * 2) *Not surprising with ten Disney animators (from the movie) are involved in the game (Tom Bancroft, Travis Blaise, Phil Boyd, Tony Cipriano, Rob Corley, Tim Hodge, Jim Jackson, Alex Kupersmmidt, Anthony Michaels and Barry Temple).
 * 3) The music comes straight from the movie. Enjoy classics like Friend Like Me and A Whole New World.
 * 4) *The DOS version uses the same soundtrack as the Amiga version.
 * 5) Very basic, but nice controls.
 * 6) The levels follow the story very well.
 * 7) Most of the levels feature a shop with the merchant at the beginning of the movie (believed by many fans to be the Genie himself) that sells extra lives and continues. The currency for the shop are red gems that can be found throughout the game. Extra lives cost five gems and continues cost ten.
 * 8) Aladdin can deflect most enemy projectiles. This can be used to send weapons back to the attacker.
 * 9) Aladdin has two main forms of attack: throwing apples and swinging a sword.
 * 10) Apples are frequent in the game so Aladdin doesn't need to worry about running out. In fact, apples replenish during the Iago boss fight and the final battle with Jafar.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The DOS version does not work if you have more than 16 megabytes of RAM. This can be fixed with RAM limiter programs, and this is not an issue in DOSBox.
 * 2) Dodging the pots can be a nightmare.
 * 3) The Boss fights are too easy.

Reception
Disney's Aladdin was the third best-selling game on Genesis/Mega Drive, and it was also very popular on MS-DOS and Amiga.

James Rolfe very briefly reviewed this game in his Genesis vs Super Nintendo video where he talked about how most games were different depending on the console and stated that he thought that the Genesis version of Disney's Aladdin was superior to the one on Super Nintendo, although Disney's Aladdin on Super Nintendo was developed by Capcom, not Virgin.

Shinji Mikami, Capcom's game designer actually stated that if he didn't make the SNES version of the game, he would probably have bought this version due to Aladdin having a sword and better animation.

Trivia
In the "Inside the Lamp" level, if you look in the background, you can see a Model 1 Genesis along with a television.

Videos
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