Ahh Aladdin – my favourite Disney movie! I remember I wanted this game so bad for christmas one year – my bro and I never got it, but we traded games for a while with a neighbour and ended up beating it! When I first started collecting video games, this was one of the first ones that I picked up!

In this game, you follow Aladdin on his quest to win Prince Jasmines’ heart and save Agrabah from Jaffar. It is quite faithful to the movie in terms of both graphics and story although the developers threw in a few extra stages here in there to extent this already quite short adventure. The first stage starts in markets of Agrabah and it look like it was pulled right out of the move. Later stages have you running around in the genies world, ancient pyramids (don’t remember that from the movie), and finally back to the palace.

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In terms of gameplay, it is a lot of fun with quite responsive controls. You will be jumping, swinging, and climbing though many levels with the occasional “flying carpet level” where you will be either escaping from the Chamber of Secrets (probably the most difficult level in the game) or wooing Princess Jasmine on the “love ride” though the clouds. You also get to picket up apples and launch them at enemies which is also fun and especially useful against these pesky archers.

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Each level is also scatted with tons of green gems – I first thought that getting 100 of these would give you a free live, but it actually extends your health meter by one which is  quite useful! There are also a bunch of red gems found in hard to reach places – if you collect a large amount of them (or all of them) you get a variety of different endings. On my 2nd time through I got just over 60 which was actually pretty good. If you wanted to get them all, a little memory work is necessary but quite doable.

There are two bosses in the game – the shopper keeper who is going to cut off Jasmine’s hand at the end of the first stage and Jaffar. I actually found the first boss the hardest as you only have a little window to jump on his head! Jaffar has two forms, but both very manageable. Once he is defeated, the game ends with a slideshow of sorts from the movie. The game is also quite short and can be completed in about an hour.

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In terms of graphics, the game looks excellent with tons of colours populating the numerous stages. Aladdin’s animation is also great although not quite up the quality found in the Genesis version of the game. The catchy tunes from the movie are also present in their 16-bit format, and really help to make this game feel like an authentic Disney experience.

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Overall, this game is a short but sweet platforming game with excelling graphics and music. This game will not take more than an hour, maybe two if you go back for all the red gems.  All in all – I give this game a 7/10.

FINAL SCORE: 7/10