When it comes to comparing Virgin Games' Aladdin platformer for the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis, and Capcom's effort for the Super Nintendo, there are a few glaring differences that are always brought up, but one that always sticks in our heads is the gameplay.
Whereas players are able to wield a scimitar in the Mega Drive / Genesis version to dispatch enemies, the Capcom took a more kid-friendly approach, opting for Aladdin to jump on enemies instead, in order to put them out of commission.
We've been always curious why this was, with our interest in the topic only deepening after we stumbled across a Polygon interview with Shinji Mikami from 2014, where he claimed that he "wanted to have a sword" but that something had seemingly stopped him. So, as a result, when we were speaking to Noah Dudley, the producer of The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse, recently, we ended up taking the opportunity to chat briefly about the SNES Aladdin, which was another project he helped supervise for Disney.
Speaking to us, he volunteered to give us a little more information about the sword, including the reason why one developer was allowed to include it and the other seemingly wasn't.
"Everybody wanted to do Aladdin," Dudley told Time Extension. "And Disney, who occasionally gets a little greedy, split the license between Capcom and Sega. As part of the deal, they promised to set up a Chinese wall between the two teams. A Chinese wall is a fake entity that keeps information from one group getting to another. And we were pretty successful at that. I don't think there was a lot of stealing. So I was in charge of the Capcom group and a guy named Patrick [Gilmore] was in charge of the Sega group."
Because of this wall, neither Gilmore nor he knew what the other was doing, with each guiding the product based on their own ideas of what suited the license. As a result, there was a bit of inconsistency between what guidelines they gave to the developers, with Dudley not envisioning Aladdin as a "swashbuckler" but instead someone who uses their quick wits and athleticism to get ahead. Case closed? Well, not exactly, as it appears Capcom did somehow find out that Sega's game featured a sword at some point and continued to push Disney to let them include it.
"I had to slap Capcom's hands a couple of times about Aladdin using a sword to get through the guards," he told us. "I personally think that was an error on Patrick's part. But Capcom eventually found out — I don't remember how — and set up a real fuss. They said, 'Wait a minute, how come Sega's allowed to use swords and we're not?'
"They really were putting their foot down and saying, 'Look this is a video game we have to have some violence', so I went to Japan with the co-producer of Aladdin, a woman named Amy Pell, and my boss, and we talked and eventually they said, 'No, this isn't going to work we're going to have to do without."
So, in other words, it seems that the verdict came not just from Dudley, but from one of the producers of the movie itself as well as higher-ups within Disney.
Interestingly, because of this limitation, Dudley ultimately believes Capcom did a better job than Sega, telling us, "I think that Capcom's designers were better than Sega's. I think that they produced a better game. But, of course, I would say that."
What do you think? Was Disney right to stop Capcom from using the sword? Or do you think it was a missed opportunity? Let us know in the comments!