One of the all-time great video game rivalries was the 16-bit wars of the first half of the 1990s, pitting the Super NES against the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive outside of North America). Unlike today, debates about which of the two consoles was superior had little to do with tech specs or hardware capabilities-- it mostly came down to games, which is how it should be.

The most common aspect of the SNES vs. Genesis argument was which mascot was better, but there was one battle between the two systems that became surprisingly heated and rages on to this day: Which console had the better version of Aladdin. Unlike most multi-console releases, each version of Aladdin was a completely different game, built by a completely different team, and with completely different play mechanics. For this list, we're choosing to go the diplomatic route, giving an equal number of reasons why each game is superior to the other. Which is valid, because ultimately, they are both classics.

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10 SNES Version Has Tighter Gameplay

As it was made by Capcom, who were responsible for the excellent Disney-based games on the NES, it comes as no surprise that the SNES version of Aladdin has impeccable gameplay.

The control is super-tight, and you never miss a jump or fail an enemy encounter because the controls aren't cooperating. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the Genesis version, which has that loose, sloppy control that would become something of a staple for the team who made it-- they also went on to make the equally-slippery Earthworm Jim.

9 Genesis Version Has Better Animation

Okay, fine, so Aladdin for Genesis didn't have glove-like control and felt a bit loose most of the time-- but the trade-off was that the animation was absolutely second-to-none for its era, and still holds up pretty well to this day.

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The team got to use animation directly from the movie that Disney provided them, and it shows, creating a game that comes as close to "looking like a cartoon" as any 16-bit game ever got.

8 SNES Version's Levels Are Better-Paced

via: gamesrevisited.com

Again, the team that made Aladdin for SNES had a lot of practice in making Disney-based platformers that were fantastic games on their own, and that experience really shines through here.

While the Genesis version wears its loyalty to the movie like a badge of honor even to a fault, the SNES Aladdin chooses levels that are well-designed and perfectly-paced over trying to replicate the movie or show off fancy graphics.

7 Genesis Version Offers More Exploration

It's a little too easy to get lost in Genesis Aladdin's stages, with it not always being made clear enough which way you're supposed to go next. But on the other hand, the levels are much more sprawling than the SNES version and are designed for exploration rather than just keeping you moving forward. As such, it's the kind of game you can take your time and explore, and there are plenty of bonuses and Easter eggs to find as a reward for doing so.

6 SNES Version Has The Jasmine Bonus Stage

Though it was only a bonus level, the magic carpet ride with Aladdin and Jasmine being included as a playing section in Aladdin for SNES was one of the most creative-- and risky-- things to be included in either game.

Rather than try to turn it into a stage with shoehorned-in enemies, or just having it be an unplayable cutscene, getting to actually guide the young lovers on their romantic adventure was a magical moment, and a surprising one in the game that was otherwise the less cinematic of the two.

5 Genesis Version Follows The Movie More Closely

One of the reasons why licensed platforms were so reviled in the 8- and 16-bit eras is that the games often had little to do with the license they were based upon, taking a few characters and throwing them into levels that could've been from any game.

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The SNES Aladdin falls victim to this trope as well, taking players through locales that the movie never features. The Genesis version uses no such trickery, not only sticking with levels based on the movie but stubbornly following the movie's progression through those areas as well.

4 SNES Version Has Better-Balanced Difficulty

Neither of the 16-bit Aladdin games is a cakewalk, and both will push any gamer's abilities to their limits at times. In particular, both games have a Cave of Wonders escape sequence that likely caused more than a few controllers to be hurled at walls.

But whereas the Genesis version is often made needlessly difficult due to its slippery controls and spotty collision detection, the SNES Aladdin tends to never stray from the "tough but fair" camp and there are few deaths that can be blamed on anything other than user error.

3 Genesis Version Has More Songs From The Movie

The movie version of Aladdin has one of the best groups of songs in cinematic history, with one classic tune after another and not a single dud in the bunch. Both games wisely emulate some of those songs, and both come as close as possible with the limitations of their respective hardware.

But the Genesis version gets the edge here because it simply contains more of the movie's tunes than the SNES one, and even does a better job with a couple of them ("Friend Like Me" in particular).

2 SNES Version Has Better Platforming

Though both versions of Aladdin are technically considered platformers, it's mostly only the SNES version that feels like a platformer.

While the Genesis game is more about on-the-ground action-- which we'll get to in a bit-- the SNES game instead decided to take to heart Aladdin's athletic and acrobatic abilities and allow players to jump, bounce, and swing through levels and build those levels based around that.

1 Genesis Version Has A Sword

Legendary game designer Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil) actually got his start working on Capcom's Disney games-- SNES Aladdin included.

And when asked recently which version of Aladdin he thought was better, Mikami admitted it was the Genesis version, and for one simple reason: because Aladdin has a sword in that one. It may not be as true to the character as spring-boarding off of the tops of enemy heads and throwing apples at them, but turning Aladdin into a hack-n-slash action star is just cooler.

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