A Closer Look at Aladdin

I've been on a Disney kick lately, mostly because I spent two days this week at the happiest place on earth and its smaller, yet surprisingly fun, sister park. When you combine the bombardment of propaganda that place launches at you with my predisposition to accept such propaganda (because I had no childhood you see) the result is a couple of weeks of watching movies, buying merchandise and playing video games.

The last time I talked about Aladdin for the SNES I complained about how difficult yet fun it was. When your technology is limited you overcompensate with difficulty and for a few months, as I refused to play the game, I continued to believe my analysis. I decided to give it a second chance and beat the game in less than an hour.

The game only has six (or seven) stages, unlimited continues (in the form of passwords) and is a pretty standard, solid platformer. Every stage consists of Aladdin jumping on moving, non moving and floating platforms while throwing apples at baddies and collecting some sort of jewels. The two exceptions to this are the magic carpet stages: one that has Aladdin flying through a cavern avoiding obstacles (which defeated me the last time) and a bonus stage in which Aladdin and the Princess ride around at night collecting goodies, to a ringtone version of "A whole new world". There is only one boss and thats Jafar, first in standard issue and then in his badass snake version, as was customary with bosses in the 90's he wasnt much of a challenge.

After that the Genie steps in and theres a final cut scene in which Aladdin proves his sincerity or whatever by wishing for the Genie's freedom (like in the movie!), when all seems lost with Jasmine the Sultan steps in and, because hes a ruthless despot, decrees that there will be a new law that the Princess can now marry whoever she damn well wants. This would be where I take a jab at how "and thats how its been in the Middle East" ever since. But I'm above that so I wont.

So......theres another game beaten, the tally is now at two. Time to get some more games I suppose.

Bonus!
Kotaku has a great story on how Toad likes to flip people off. Link.