Aladdin (NES, Hummer Team)

Aladdin
Also known as: Aladdin II, Aladdin III, Aladdin Special, Popeye II: Travels in Persia Developer: Hummer Team Publisher: JY Company Platform: Unlicensed NES Released internationally: 1995 This game has hidden developer credits. This game has unused graphics. This game has revisional differences.

One of an amazing four Aladdin games released for the NES, three of which were ports of the Genesis game (only one of which was actually licensed).

This is neither. It's a port of the SNES game, made and released by people who definitely did not have permission from either Capcom or Disney to do so.

To do: Unused bonus round graphics.

Developer Logo

This unused "Hummer" can be found with the title screen graphics. It looks fairly rough, so it probably wasn't ever intended to be displayed (or at least would have been replaced by a polished version if it found its way into the final product).

(Source: Bootleg Games Wiki)

Programmer Credit

The following text is present in the ROM and used for memory initialization. Silvers Lin is also the programmer and producer who was part of Computer & Entertainment Inc.:

. Silvers LIN .

(Source: Bootleg Games Wiki, cah4e3)

Version Differences

Popeye II: Travels in Persia

Basically the same game, but with Popeye's head on Aladdin's body. Surprisingly effective.

Aladdin	Popeye II

Internal Variations

In common with many games released by JY Company, each game ROM contains multiple variations on the same game, enabling them to produce multiple "different" carts simply by adjusting dip switches by soldering a joint on the PCB. In emulators, these are usually accessed through a soft-reset or menu.

This said, the dumped Aladdin and Popeye II ROMs are both actually different revisions of the game with different title screens and graphics contained within.

Aladdin

In addition to the two accessible using dip switches, this version contains at least two title variations which are only available through Game Genie codes. Popeye II was ultimately used in the other release of the game (although the Popeye sprite is not present in this version), but no Aladdin Special cart is known to exist.

Accessible through dip switches
Game Genie only
Code GAVVTPAA	Code PAOEILAA

(Game Genie codes: cah4e3)

Popeye II

45-in-1 Version

The version present on the JY-120 Super 45-in-1 multicart features some differences from the standalone releases:

• The controls are reversed so A is jump and B is attack, in line with most other NES platform games.
• Popeye II (listed here as a separate menu option) starts on the second level, to further the illusion that it is actually a different game.

Probably Hacked/Pirate Versions

To do: More info on missing animations and second MMC3 port.

A somewhat poorly-done port from JY's proprietary mapper to the standard MMC3 mapper exists, probably made without Hummer Team's involvement, which is the most common version found on pirate carts. This is often known as "Aladdin 4", but the "first three" Aladdin games seem to exist in this variant too.

The easiest way to distinguish it is by the fact that when starting the game, instead of the first level's music playing, a sound effect plays while the title screen music continues (leaving it music-less when that tune finishes). Sometimes its copyright date is modified to 1996, and some animations in later levels are missing.

Another MMC3 port of unknown origin does not suffer from the music problem, but is rarely seen on cartridge.

Unused Graphics

The graphics for Popeye are present in the Aladdin ROM, but are not accessible without hacking the game. When selecting the CHR-ROM bank for Aladdin's sprites, you need to add 0x28 to the CHR bank number, then it will use Popeye sprites instead of Aladdin sprites. Doing this involves patching 20 entries in a graphics bank selection table.