Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse

I remember how I tried to play this game as a child and failed at the difficulty; now, decades later, I decided to give it a shot again and hopefully finish it this time. And in contrast to many other old games of this time, this here aged actually well! The pixel graphics are really lovely, the MIDI sound great and the gameplay is wonderfully smooth and due to it's simplicity solid and intuitive. The story itself doesn't deserve a price, however, it's pretty nice, with a few twists and turns here and there and while these aren't innovative from a todays perspective, these twists work well enough to keep the players curiosity up. What also surprised me is, that the portrayel of women was rather progressive for the time, not perfect by any means, but far from any cliche of sexist games.

I remember playing this as a kid the music was entrancing with head phones on! The hack and slash with the rpg elements are awesome as well!

Included in the TSR Masterpiece Collection of 1996, The Genie's Curse stands out among its peers with a fantastical setting and story with a lower barrier for entry for gamers interested in the world but don't want to handle heavy stat mechanics. Much of the underlying tabletop systems are distilled down to just necessary action stats, and the game leans heavily into action and logic puzzles. My only complaint is that the combat can be janky, but it gets easier with practice and upgrades that the game gives regularly. It's a piece of my childhood that holds up, even after over 20 years.

One of the greatest D&D-based games of my childhood - at once challenging and smooth-going (except for one or two rather irritating riddles). Worth every cent.

Remember this from years past and I was just never impressed with it at all, it's like a bad SNES RPG. Bland, boring, bad graphics/look. I couldn't get through 5 minutes of it. Love most of the Gold Box D&D stuff but this is just bad.