Disney's Aladdin in Nasira's Revenge

Now I love Aladdin as a franchise, heck I still love the TV show and the third film to this day and even have a soft spot for the second film even if I'm aware that's easily the worst thing the series had to offer. OK it's the second worst thing as that honour goes to this game which was released four years after the third film and eight after the original masterpiece, although it being release this long after the franchise was finished is the least of the game’s problems.

Unlike most people, I've actually finished this game, so I can tell you that its story goes in bizarre places likely to reference as many aspects of the series as possible. One thing I don't ever remember being in the show or films is Aladdin rescuing jasmine in Egypt which is something that happens in this fame, I also missed the episode where he rescues the sultan from the sand kingdom (from someone who isn't mozenrath BTW) jasmine exploring her destroyed palace that's overrun by corrupt guards using stealth by hiding in an urn periodically or Aladdin needing to rescue the genie from the cave of wonders due to one of his enemies trapping him there early on in the story. I do remember him getting framed for sultan and jasmines abductions quite a bit as well as Abu rescuing him from the dungeons and him fighting thieves in an oasis, so it's not like everything this game throws at you is coming out of nowhere from the franchise. Something the game did invent for its story is Jafar’s sister nazira, who is the titular antagonist of the game who wants to resurrect her brother by killing Aladdin and using the same logic her brother did in the second film to complete her spell to bring Jafar back to life and complete his revenge against our hero. Let's just say it makes even less sense here than it does in that film as at least there you can argue jaguar wanted Aladdin to suffer rather than him instantly killing him and taking his resentment out on his friends, here it's just a callback to an already weak story made worse by its terrible controls.

Now the game isn't bad when it comes to its puzzles or platforming as it was clearly made as a game and not an interactive tie in to a popular Disney product like other Disney games from back then, that is, the coins serve as actual currency (occasionally at least) while the genie tokens and red gems give access to bonus rounds rather than being superfluous collectibles such as letter that spell out our heroes name like in other games around this time. The problem here is that Aladdin controls are very slippery in this game, to the point where simple platforming becomes a chore due to his refusal to stop moving once he performs a jump as he runs for a while. The hit detection is also off as you can hit enemies while they're wide open and yet the game registers it as them blocking which they frequently do during combat. Thankfully the hit detection is often helpful to you as you can stand there for minutes on end and have them slice and dice at you without taking any damage just by blocking yourself, which sees Aladdin put up his sword above his head and nothing more. From that you can tell the animation in this game is abyss mal as characters will perform random movements that don't correlate to what's happening with the games combat. The game is surprisingly short on humour as well as it strives to be taken seriously which is in direct conflict with the franchise which was a comedy at heart. This is bizarre as it has the same voice actors here that the show has (robin Williams is once again sadly missed here) and from what I can gather, the same writers as well. That's again the least of the game’s problems, but I thought it worth mentioning here.

It's a game that's all over the place that I want to love but I can't due to its awful controls, the environments look good, and I like the way the soundtrack is used, but that's worthless when you consider how awful the gameplay us.

As a kid I really liked this game, I remember getting it for either Christmas or my Birthday one year, and then I ended up getting stuck on this puzzle, so I wasn't able to beat that part until a few months later when a friend was able to figure it out. Its about the definition of a mediocre action platformer. The game controlled kind of awkward from what I remember, the design was anywhere from awkward and clunky, to just outright frustrating. There were many moments where you had to platform extra precise and the crappy camera would get in the way sometimes. The story was pretty forgettable and overall the game was just bland. I mean there were some pretty fun moments, the music wasn't bad, and it had some cool enemies, but nostalgia really can't crank the score for this game up too high since it is a pretty bad game design wise, and only had a handful of good moments.