Trivia / Aladdin (Virgin Games)

• Approval of God: Capcom game designer Shinji Mikami prefers the Genesis version over the one his own team made:
  Shinji: If I didn't actually make [the SNES game], I would probably buy the Genesis one. Animation-wise, I think the Genesis version's better. The Genesis version had a sword, actually. I wanted to have a sword.
• Creator Cameo: David Perry's face aside via debug mode, all of the voice clips in the game were provided by Tommy Tallarico.
• Dueling Games: With Donkey Kong Country, of all games. Donkey Kong Country was developed after Nintendo saw Aladdin and had Rare work on a game that would rival it on the SNES.
• Executive Meddling: In an arguably improved manner; According to designer Seth Mendelsohn, the initial prototype for the game had Aladdin using a basic jump attack instead of a weapon. When a Disney representative saw it, they asked "Why doesn't Aladdin have a sword?"
• No Export for You: The Nintendo Entertainment System version was only released in Europe.
• Troubled Production: Blue Sky Software was originally chosen by Sega for this project, but they were busy doing Jurassic Park (Sega Genesis) and only assigned a small team to Aladdin. Disney soon noticed the slow progress, cancelled that game, and hired Virgin to do it from scratch.[1]
• Urban Legend of Zelda: Readers sent in letters to Game Players magazine in the 1990s, claiming that Sebastian the Crab could be freed from the dungeon by getting the key from a dog by bribing it with a leg of meat, both visible in that dungeon level. This was officially debunked by the programmers, saying that Sebastian, the dog and the meat were all just window dressing.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The game was going to have an enhanced remake for the Sega-CD, but Virgin was too busy with working on The Jungle Book, so it was scrapped.
    • Among other flourishes of this scrapped remake, Razoul was to appear at the end of the Dungeon instead of Agrabah Rooftops. Jafar was going to have his third genie form in this version after the cobra form.
    • Asthetically, Aladdin was going to wear his Prince Ali costume in some of the new levels, as well as Genie appearing to give him words of encouragement in his idle animation, voiced once again by Robin Williams.
  • In recent years, the beta from the Chicago Electronics Show was dumped by the Hidden Palace revealing that two enemies were cut entirely, a track was replaced, and two enemies were redrawn.
    • These two enemies were a sword-swallower much like in the movie, where Abu pulls the sword from his mouth, who tossed swords, and a prisoner who would attack with his ball-and-chain. The first was cut due to redundancy with the knife-jugglers and fat guards who do a better job at throwing swords, while the second was cut because they couldn't get his colors right. The prisoner was eventually found in the final ROM by the Video Game History Foundation, prepped and ready to go, before being cut entirely
    • The cut song was to play in the Desert, called "Arabic Ne Naw". It was composed by Donald S. Griffin but was replaced by Camel Jazz in the final version. Similarly, Camel Jazz originally played in the Cave of Wonders while Gloomy Tune played in the Dungeon. Friend Like Me was originally the first level theme, before it was moved to the more sensible "Inside the Lamp" level, with Prince Ali taking its place.
    • Strangely enough, Arabic Ne Naw ended up in the Game Boy and NES ports of the game. The track was also reused in the Jungle Book as "Jungle Jazz" playing in both 16-bit versions.
    • The redrawn enemies were the skeleton and the ghosts. The Ghosts behaved the same, but would have appeared in the dungeon as well. The skeleton originally had an exploding potion which would cause it to collapse into a pile of bones, and then reform.
  • According to the Sega-16 article, many of the gameplay features in this game were originally planned for The Jungle Book.
  • In late 2017, the Video Game History Foundation got their hands on the source code and some of the development tools and design documents for the game.
    • Hidden in the code is another unused enemy called the "Golden Monkey Statue," a relatively simple enemy that just tosses an endless stream of jewels at the player. They would have appeared in a level from the scrapped Sega-CD port as part of a level set in the Cave of Wonders' treasure chamber. The only remains of the enemy in the final game are the Shiva statues (which would have only appeared in Jafar's Palace and activated by "Iago's cousins") and the King Mook Shiva Monkey. It seems the decision was made, at some point, to simply drop the Golden Monkey and use the Shiva statue in its place.
    • Another cut enemy is a version of Iago disguised as a flamingo. He would have moved out of the way just as the player is about to land on him as a platform.
    • A bonus game based on Rock–Paper–Scissors was to be used with Aladdin playing against the magic carpet.
    • Animations were found of Abu looking into a bag and Jafar throwing a smoke bomb. The latter of the two was to be used in the final boss battle before Jafar transformed into a cobra. Abu's animation was to be used in boss fights where he would pull items out of the bag for Aladdin to use, and would have played a greater role in the fight with Iago on the storm machine.
  • The design documents for the Sega-CD version called for a different order of levels and locations of the bosses (including new ones):
    • Razoul was to be the first boss at the end of the Marketplace where Aladdin would have rescued Jasmine in the Genesis version, while Farouk was to be his replacement in the Sega-CD version with Razoul moving to the Dungeon.
    • The desert was planned to have a Sand Scorpion boss in the CD version. No additional design information is provided on this boss.
    • Gazeem was to be the sole boss of the rooftops.
    • The Cave of Wonders was divided into three levels like in the final version, but in a way similar to the SNES version: The Treasure Room with the Shiva Monkey as the boss, the Lamp Chamber, and the Escape from the cave (with the Rug Ride included as a mini-section). This would lead to the Inside the Lamp level.
    • The Palace stage was to be followed by a second Marketplace level, transitioning straight from the Sultan’s Palace to Jafar’s Palace. There was also a second encounter planned with Razoul for this stage. This would have represented Aladdin's return from the Ends of the Earth. The Sega-CD version of this stage would have featured the Fire-Eater (from Jasmine's first visit to the Market and the Prince Ali sequence) as a boss.
  • According to an interview with the marketing manager of Sega at the time, Pamela Kelly, the Disney producers wanted their game to become "the hardest game ever!" Kelly shot down this request, noting how much this would have alienated the film's Target Audience. While the finished product is still reasonably challenging for younger players, it doesn't quite meet the qualifications of being Nintendo Hard.^note The game maintains a 3.20 difficulty ranking on GameFAQs' GameRankings, while the minimum threshold for Nintendo Hard games is 3.50.

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