Aladdin

Aladdin bounces across the screen like a mouse in a trap — quick, sensible, but without any grand designs. This platformer from an obscure NES publisher in 1995 masquerades as an adaptation of Disney's animated film, but really it's just doing its own thing.

You go left to right, jump over obstacles, collect apples, and fight enemies with your magic carpet. No complex mechanics here — the controls are stiff as hell, and that's actually the problem. The character responds with a noticeable delay that robs you of precise jumping maneuvers exactly when you need them most. The graphics are painfully flat, and the music sounds like a player someone switched off mid-sentence.

What's interesting, though: the game made its own world. It's not just reenacting the animated scenes. Instead it sends you through bags, towers, and dungeons that have little to do with the film. Levels change at a decent pace, and once you push through, boredom stops being your worst enemy. Some sections actually have genuine charm — probably because the developers knew you just had to make the best of what you had on NES.

The problem is, you only glimpse that passion in brief moments. Otherwise it's mediocre — not a game you'd buy if you had a choice. But if you stumble across it in an emulator and have twenty minutes to spare, you'll discover it's nowhere near the worst thing NES had to offer. It's aged in the worst sense of the word: without wit, without reason to remember it.

Play it today if you're craving vintage platformers with a frustrating streak. There's nothing pulling you back, but nothing pushing you away either.