Aladdin

No joke, the day after I picked up a copy of Aladdin on Game Boy it was announced that the 16-bit version would be getting a re-release on Switch along with The Lion King. But hey, I got this for five bucks which is much cheaper than the Switch compilation will be. But... in my memory the SNES version of Aladdin was way better. And in fairness, I think Switch is only getting the Genesis version anyway, right?

The OTHER thing I remember about Aladdin is that it was crotch-punchingly difficult. It and The Lion King both seemed to be way more challenging than seemed normal given that they were probably at least partially targetted it kids. But what can you do? 

Aladdin on Game Boy is... interesting. I will say that it looks pretty good actually. It does a decent job of emulating the LOOK of the SNES version on a monochrome display. That's no small feat. So hey, props to NMS Software who I just Googled and apparently were only around for a few more years after this and mostly had done Game Boy ports of licensed properties. Huh.

This port of Aladdin is kind of fun. But not exactly engrossing. The stages feel rather confusing, the jumping and combat both feel kind of wonky. Y'know what it reminds me of a bit is Prince Of Persia where the animation is really good but also a bit of a detriment to the gameplay at times. It's just that kind of everything is OFF a bit. Hit boxes are weird. I don't know. It's not something I feel like sticking with for long.

But MAYBE that's exactly how the SNES version is too? I mean I haven't played it in years. And maybe I'd feel the same way about that game too now. On the upside, I didn't spend fourty bucks on the Switch remaster in order to find out!