Aladdin Sega Mega-Drive / Genesis and Disney movie tie-ins.

In the 1980s, Disney began a true renaissance in its feature film animation department trying to bring back the magic of its early days, resulting in classics like Great Mouse Detective and The Little Mermaid. During those years, Sega began to make plans. for the international launch of your new console. the mega drive to appeal to a western audience Sega secured the rights to make Disney video game adaptations, but were licensed games really guaranteed to succeed? Its first product was Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse released in 1990. This charming platformer inspired by classic Disney movies set the bar high for future titles, the game was followed by spiritual sequels Quackshot and World of Illusion, but The first Disney movie tied in was for the animated masterpiece Fantasia Unlike the Illusion titles, the game was developed in France by Infogrames. Unfortunately, the gameplay left a lot to be desired, especially when it came to rigid controls. The Little Mermaid adaptation fared much better in part because the developers decided to make it a more underwater adventure geared toward a younger audience. But Disney games reach new heights with Aladdin, the film's massive success taking video game publishers especially by surprise. Considering that there was no adaptation of the game until a year after the film was released in theaters, Sega still had the license for the adaptation of a video game and they awarded the project to Virgin Interactive, who already had a critical success with Coolspot and Global Gladiators, but just like the creation of the film itself, lead programmer David Perry and his team faced several challenges. Another Disney game in development, Jungle Book proved to be the key, they were able to transfer a lot of items from this project and use it as a basic template for Aladdin in Aladdin, you play through the key locations of the movie by following the story closely as the gameplay takes you through the Desert Cave of Wonders and the Sultan's palace. Aladdin can attack by brandishing his sword or throwing apples. The gameplay is a nice mix between platforming and action, there are also magic carpet segments and bonus levels to provide even more variety, all the action was accompanied by a skillful arrangement of award-winning score, all 10 levels offer a decent challenge and the the developers added various Easter eggs for players to discover, for example, Mickey Mouse's ears hanging from the rope in the desert level - standing in the right place to get a unique Aladdin, was praised by video game critics for its smooth character animations, the secret behind this was virgin Interactive's patented technique called digi-cell digi-cell compressed the sprites in a very efficient way allowing more animation frames to be stored on the 16 megabit cartridge in addition to the Character animations were all drawn by Disney artists with the participation of the original directors s that guaranteed the authentic Disney look. Aladdin became one of the most successful Mega Drive games with more than 4 million copies sold worldwide, however the key team behind Aladdin left the company shortly after to start Shiny Entertainment, the studio that pioneered. in the participation of another well made platformer, Earthworm Jim Sega, with the Disney movie. The Lion King hit theaters despite the film being handled as a Project B within Disney ... it became a huge hit almost instantly and for the first time viewers were able to relive the story on their home consoles, since the video game adaptation was available when the film was released. in theaters take control of Simba as he struggles to claim his rightful place as the Lion King in this action packed platformer with levels ranging from the colorful "I can't wait to be king" stage to action in 3D in Stampede, where a Simba cub can roar to momentarily stun smaller enemies or defeat them by rolling while Lion Simba can use his sharp claws to cut through enemies the various beetles restore or extend Simba's life bar The Sidekicks Simba, Timon and Pumbaa make their appearance in the bonus stages where they have to catch falling insects The Lion King has the same level of polish as Aladdin and you hardly notice that the game was created by a completely different team. It is again quite high for a child's play The Lion King became another great success although it did not surpass the success of Aladdin, however, unlike Aladdin, the same ju main ego launched on multiple platforms, albeit with varying success. Eventually, Disney took on the role of publisher and produced Pocahontas, a late Mega Drive release. The developers wisely opted for a quieter gameplay style with less focus on action, resulting in a unique little game that breathes the same atmosphere as the movie. Another dark but nevertheless great title was Gargoyles released around the same time as Pocahontas to make the editors list.

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