Disney's Aladdin

"One of the greatest side scrollers of all time, the animation and overall quality is breathtaking even today in the year 2000"

Aladdin on Genesis, what a wonderful game. Not the crappy SNES Aladdin game developed by Capcom, no, the Genesis version was a completely different game and so when I saw that the Genesis version received scores of 6, 5, and 4 by those who submitted reviews of it to GameFAQs I was dumbfounded. Could any person be ''misguided'' enough to give such an amazing game such bad scores? I read the reviews and discovered that 2 of the reviewers were reviewing the Capcom developed SNES version, I guess they assumed the 2 versions were the same. I don't have any explanation for the other review, maybe the guy was having a bad day. I know I'm not alone in loving this game, at the time it was released every critic gave it a glowing review and I don't know of a single person that's actually played it that doesn't love it.

Graphics: 10
This is a no brainer, the graphics are impressive even today. The animation is beautiful, the levels filled with color and life. It's the little details that really shine through here, like throwing your apples at a sword wielding foe and watching as the apple splits in half on the sword, sending wonderfully animated apple slices flying. Looks like you're playing the movie.

Sound: 9.9
All the wonderful music from the movie is here and the sound effects are creative and draw you into the game. The Genesis hardware holds the sound quality just a hair from the perfect score it might deserve, Square set the standard for 16 bit game music with it's crisp clean Final Fantasy SNES games and the Genesis hardware just can't produce sound that clean.

Gameplay: 10
Classic side scrolling platform gameplay, pure and simple.
At your disposal is a sword for melee combat and you can throw apples which you collect in the levels for long range attacks. The levels are very varied both in look and gameplay. The level that's most memorable is one in which you're inside a volcano running from large boulders Indiana Jones style and dodging lava blasts as you whizz through the air on your magic carpet. Classic is the most suitable word for the gameplay, nothing revolutionary but no side scroller does it better.

Replay Value: 9
No more or less replayable than the best side scrollers, you'll keep coming back to hear the great music and see the great animation, and when you want a quick dose of tight side scrolling action.

Overall Score: 10 (A perfect sidescroller making perfect use of a great license)

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/24/00, Updated 03/24/00