Arabian Nights: The Perverted Platformer From 2001

It's like Skyrim but with guns
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#jauwn

[@jauwn]

how did this video make you feel?

[@theguysawaffle7997]

i don't know yet it hasn't premiered

[@ericjohns6534]

Alexithymic

[@Elizabeth_Lan]

help

[@Chasardous]

Super enjoying it so far!

[@OakCityGamers]

Watching it now. SHHHHHH!

[@sdbegotist]

Gold Coin. Gold Coin. Gold Coin. Gold Coin. Gold Coin.

[@jauwn]

Wow that’s impressive

[@RoyBeerZ]

@@jauwn That's what the PO said when they were presenting this feature

[@kamasoutrek]

Pretty sure "dangerous jump" is a litteral translation of "saut perilleux", which is french for "Flip"

[@Whiteboykun]

so you can tell someone to "effectuer un saut perilleux!"

[@ghostpants4081]

Nobody's here in France ever said "saut perilleux" for flip around me

[@delfinenteddyson9865]

@@ghostpants4081 I heard it plenty of times, when there was an opportunity for it of course. But you rarely see it written down, and I would believe you tend to pronounce it differently: as far as I remember, "perilleux" in "saut perilleux" is often said with two syllables and "perilleux" when stand alone with 3.

[@jjcoola998]

@@ghostpants4081was hoping we'd get a french person whole could explain this I was wondering if it might be a weird translation or just someone not caring when putting it in English lol Je veux jouer Arabian knights avec mon amis francais

[@torbjornkallstrom2316]

I was thinking of the latin salto mortal which I guess means the same thing more or less

[@KlaireMurre]

when she was talking about getting kissed before marriage and the guy just went "oh :(" I felt that in my soul. a true tour de force performance

[@zf9903]

wow. thats awesome. this game’s awesome. they got _kissing_

[@w花b]

​@@zf9903true gamers' first kiss

[@eins2001]

The cow moo as they kiss was also poignant

[@AlexanderBukh]

made me think are the other than kissing options still open

[@dieSpinnt]

You just have to acknowledge that this is a marvel of art! Look at the camera focus. When it is not on her backside, the 8 polygon breasts are the middle of the universe! Remembers me of most guys on KZbin, Twitter, Insta and all that fuzz, today! **g**

[@DJAngelcakes]

The “manual” was most likely the game’s design document, so it contains all their scrapped ideas from pre-production.

[@OuroborosChoked]

I always loved it when the manual was the first thing completed in a game's development and didn't resemble the finished product at all.

[@xAciasx]

My first thought was that it almost sounded like gothic.

[@TheBonkleFox]

There IS a swordmaster you can dual at one point in this game for an upgrade. I only know of it from the agdq speedrun

[@SaltyChickenDip]

And directly translated from ftench

[@Janingham]

Obscure games always make me feel uneasy and intrigued at the same time, knowing the fact that somebody put so much effort and time into creating something only to be forgotten completely

[@Jiub_SN]

This game isn't obscure at all

[@AleksandrStrizhevskiy]

I think they wish it was forgotten.

[@aetherland1883]

So you are implying about human artists after AI

[@HolyRamanRajya]

Everything will eventually be forgotten completely

[@notfeedynotlazy]

35:15 Uh... you're in for a surprise if you actually _read_ the _Arabian Nights._ It is _incredibly_ raunchy. Most of the stuff has been *heavily* censored on the tales commonly told to the children (Aladdin, Ali-Baba, Simbad...) but there are tales that are simply impossible to tone down - starting with the very premise (the Sultan and his friend, after they get both coerced by a woman captured by a genie to have sex with her, find both of their wifes cheating on them with... let's say _multiple_ slaves, so after killing them, the Sultan decides to marry a different girl each night and kill each of them at the next morning. One girl, Sherezade, willingly marries him to stop the massacre by, right after sex, start telling him a story and stopping before dawn, so he lets her live to hear the rest of the tale. Rinse and repeat. Until after 1001 nights and three children, the Sultan decides it is time to stop the charade and formally lets her live). And I'm not even touching the story where the Caliph Harun al-Rashid, in one of his famous "get dressed as a commoner and walk around the city" nights (I bet you heard that one before) is threatened by a fisherman (hilariously named Caliph) with being sodomized if he _(the_ Caliph) doesn't work faster - and Harun quickly complies, explicitly for fear of the fisherman's _zib_ (yes, I know the Arabian word for "huge cock" thanks to that book) being thick enough to burst his royal ass apart (I bet you did NOT heard that one before). So, the MC getting a princesses harem that is only a sex object and then having to kiss the Sultan on the lips? Yes. *COMPLETLY* within the spirit of the original.

[@TheMCzorro]

I forgot what story it was, but I remember something about a small boy, for whatever reason aggressively trying to seduce the protagonist of the story. Having to kiss the sultan feels like comic relief after stuff like this

[@gundamned4879]

clicking read more on this comment might have fried a few neurons if i wasnt bisexual and liked robots too much

[@shiannafoxx]

oh...

[@franslair2199]

the woman isn't captured by a genie (efreet), she has it as a servant and uses it to threaten men into having sex with her

[@crazynutreviews2647]

Yikes...I must've read a heavily abridged and censored version of the Arabian Nights because I don't remember those at all.

[@GuigEspritDuSage]

I've made a small internship in this company from January to mid mars 1999. It's far away now, but I'm quite sure that the head of the main character is a scan of the head of Louis-Marie Rocques, Silmarils' co-founder and director. If i remember correctly, Silmarils had 11 workers (not including me) at this time, witch was quite little. Arabian night first episode was published for free in summer 2000 and last episode, maybe in 2001. I wrote some very short code for Arabian Night, but I worked mainly on Tournament of Warrior, an unpublished crappy 3D fighting game.

[@MitchellPorter2025]

Thank you for this knowledge!

[@eheyz19]

very interesting

[@dehavillandcanadatwinotter9621]

@@GuigEspritDuSage searched up that guy you mentioned. Seems to be a resemblance I guess, there’s several pictures of random guys on that dev team. There’s a much more recent video of the guy by the same name for some university who looks a bit like Rocques but if that’s really him he certainly aged well in that timeframe.

[@johnalogue9832]

When I heard "the flower of 1000 scents," I thought it was spelled as to *cents,* making it "the flower of $10.00." The legendary flower of a thousand cents.

[@johnkneeshaw8008]

The legendary flower of ten bucks.

[@LutraLovegood]

With inflation, those ten bucks are probably a billion bucks by now.

[@enderkatze6129]

I Like how the skybox is of a modern city at night in the distance

[@afaris88]

I thought I was the only one noticed. Looks a bit like New York from afar lol

[@jaredbissenden6230]

I had to go back 10:55 for those who missed it.

[@RemoWilliams1227]

​@@afaris88😂 it does, lol 1001 Manhattan nights

[@HopeyDiamond]

millennium old buildings that happened to have lights on (yes, we invented fire a long time ago) MUST BE A MODERN CITY

[@dehavillandcanadatwinotter9621]

Looking closer it seems to have a bit more of an ancient Arabian look to the buildings than modern skyscrapers but they still look way too tall, like if there was such thing as an ancient Dubai!

[@rainphee]

they actually made you kiss the sultan to finish the game. oh my god. 10/10.

[@robertwildschwein7207]

Can't shake the feeling off that this one of the devs many fetishes

[@BlazeHeartPanther]

"How progressive" XD

[@DustinBarlow8P]

@@BlazeHeartPanther Ahead of it's time!

[@kanrakucheese]

Why didn't he just kiss his hand?

[@rainphee]

@@kanrakucheese they're in love

[@z1no3n]

i think mellissa is a perfect name for an arabian princess

[@jauwn]

better than her sisters, Spiruline(?) and Guarana

[@Melggart]

@@jauwn Guaraná? As in the South American plant whose name is based on a native word?

[@windy8544]

@@Melggart indeed all of these are plants

[@Meleedroit]

Tbf, no depiction of arab women gets it right

[@CainXVII]

Tbf, their dad is also very Bri'ish

[@NeutralDrow]

...wait, does that final cutscene plot twist imply that the Sultan was never married? I guess that's plausible, if he had to ask a genie to create daughters for him...? 🤨

[@jauwn]

holy shit

[@br.blahb.blahson5394]

Does it just mean he's not married to Ali Baba?

[@NeutralDrow]

@@br.blahb.blahson5394 That would imply that his daughters didn't necessarily have to be virgins to use their magic, they just had to avoid boning Ali Baba specifically?

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

The sultan says he has the same power as his daughters. When the daughters are kissed before they are married, they teleport. Therefore the sultan isn't married. Or at least isn't at that point, considering the framing story.

[@Meleedroit]

As an iraqi who has never left my country, it feels weird as hell seeing Arabian nights depicted outside "adventures of sindibad", guess we just really liked that anime over here

[@jauwn]

i am from the US and growing up we had to read stories from Arabian Nights as part of school, although heavily censored since some of it is pretty wild lol

[@Meleedroit]

@@jauwn honestly never read it, literally all i know abt it is sindibad bcz of spacetoon lol

[@CowboyCheeseslime]

Same but I am from Egypt 🇪🇬🇪🇬 السلام عليكم

[@Jiub_SN]

@@CowboyCheeseslimeyou hate the Coptic?

[@wareforcoin5780]

​@@Jiub_SNAlmost as much as you hate Jews, probably.

[@spicysalad3013]

i dont know why but your delivery of "i learned to fly and accidentally became immortal" sent me into hysterics

[@4dragons632]

That explanation of how to attack in the game and it spends 90% of its time talking about a weapons master who doesn't exist feels like it was written by generative AI. Even though that is surely impossible.

[@joebot86]

They invented time travel just so they could have chat GPT-3 for writing descriptions.

[@LonelySpaceDetective]

When game manuals were still a thing, they would typically be written by people who weren't directly attached to the game's development; getting information through consulting developers or even secondhand from representatives or testers, and due to lead times on printing they would often be finalized before the game itself has been finished. So, at times you'd have manuals referring to something that was _supposed_ to be in the game but got cut late, or descriptions of mechanics or features that don't _quite_ match how they work in the final game, or even things made up entirely because the writer was told it by someone who themselves made it up or to add some flavor to otherwise dry text. What the Hell happened here I really don't know, but I'd probably guess the cut content part.

[@pufflepoint]

​@@LonelySpaceDetectiveSome parts also strike me as being machine translated

[@DeuxisWasTaken]

Humans on drugs are basically generative AI so…

[@thestripedmenace]

​@@pufflepointOh definitely.

[@enkephalin07]

Did you not know that the original Arabian Nights was erotica? The British Empire wouldn't even let Sir Richard Burton's translation of it on their shores. He had to form an "Anthropological Society" in order to bypass obscenity laws in order to distribute it. That wasn't the only literary smut he brought home, either.

[@battlion507]

So he secured the porn... but called it "cultured history"?

[@enkephalin07]

@@battlion507 Yes, and got a generous cover charge for viewing it.

[@HolyRamanRajya]

In India, well at least in Bengal there was a tradition in the 80s to give a book of arabian nights as a wedding gift to a newly married couple

[@AverageWagie]

My parents had a physical copy of Arabian Nights (more like copies, it had several volumes). They were gathering dust in a box and when I was a teenager I found them by accident and stared reading them. Imagine my shock when it was just nonstop p-rn. Like it was mostly story-within-a-story type of novel but all the stories the main character narrated were copypasted and there was an 0rg-y every 2 pages. It was more repetitive than erotic really

[@kaed_f]

Literally the fall of western civilization

[@lemeres2478]

35:10 Well, the game follows the spirit... of the villain in the original story. Summary- In Arabian Nights, there was a sultan that had a nasty habit of marrying women and then executing them when he quickly grew tired of them. Our young heroine is the next one up. So, she makes a plan- she asks the guy to let her tell bedtime stories to her sister. She was a fantastic story teller, and the sultan became enthralled in the story. So, she dragged the story on for several nights, which kept her away from the chopping block. At this point, she mastered the modern arts of click bait. Instead of ever finishing a story, She would cut it off at a cliff hanger, saying "well, that is all I know about the story". She'd then apologize, and offer up an entirely new story that would continue the cycle of engagement. This continued for (title drop) 1,001 nights, at which point the Sultan just became too attached to the story teller after three years of marriage, and he couldn't get rid of her any more. So, from this perspective, it is a story of an intelligent, likeable young woman overcoming the odds to overcome the whims of a powerful man that viewed women as disposable sexual objects.

[@GekiSonic]

I am not sure what version you're talking about considering that the usual version of why the sultan kills his wives was because of grief-induced insanity caused by discovering that his first wife was a trollop behind his back, thus leading him to believe all women were harlots and killing them to prevent their (hypothetical and imagined) infidelity.

[@LordVader1094]

@@GekiSonic What OP said is still largely correct, of the entire framing device being a woman keeping herself alive from a crazed Sultan by telling stories.

[@GekiSonic]

@@LordVader1094 Fair enough, just that the minutiae of OP's recollection of details threw me off.

[@BigPuddin]

​@@GekiSonicYou're both correct, actually.

[@jjcoola998]

Pretty ironic the game is full of dumb near naked women is a Muslim society and especially so when u describe the story lol

[@Crit-Chance]

"The default key to block is 1. On the numpad." Me with a 60% keyboard: oh

[@jauwn]

Same

[@ARStudios2000]

Me with a laptop keyboard that doesn't have that "God damn it."

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

That is what the Model M is made for. And if you die, it will survive the abuse and continue being absolutely divine to type on,

[@k0lliak553]

Skill issue fr

[@simarkarmani4034]

@@jauwn Same

[@yannickgrignon2473]

"The voice acting walks a fine line between terrible and incomprehensible" man that line killed me lmao

[@ikmor]

This is like that obscure game your friend always insists on playing, or making you play, whenever you go there, and you can't fathom why someone would ever like it. EVER. But since you're ten years old you still hang out with that friend, and endure the HOURS upon torture, hoping something or someone will intervene.

[@Alex_Off-Beat]

Hey at least this game isn't a straight up scam or loaded with crypto bro memes. That technically makes this the best game you've ever played for the channel 😂

[@jauwn]

only one i've beaten too

[@enderkatze6129]

​@@jauwnKind of

[@maxwellbowman4084]

Old bad video games like this are inept in a way that’s charming. There’s some deranged, disturbed and horny soul to those janky models and the unhinged level design. This is someone’s self expression. NFT games are stock assets placed in demo levels. They do the barest minimum of work to make a “game” which exists solely to add plausible deniability to a pyramid scheme. There’s just not enough effort to be even entertainingly bad.

[@alicehiess6508]

@@maxwellbowman4084I’ve always found entertainingly bad stuff fun to watch but not play.

[@raven75257]

​@@jauwnbeaten to or beaten too?

[@lemmiix]

You have to give props to the devs for making this game with one hand while the other was up their pants.

[@lucascoval828]

Down.

[@KimSokolArt]

I was trying to figure out why this obscure dumpster fire looked so familiar and I’m pretty sure it showed up in Awful Block at some GDQ, which feels good and right.

[@AeridisArt]

You are correct. That run was absolutely brilliant and hilarious the whole way through.

[@simpsondr12]

Yes, ran by "thekotti" totally recommend.

[@jbc00per]

Such a good run, gonna have to watch it again after this

[@Thornbloom]

@@AeridisArt "Is it gonna go back to windowed?"

[@v0id525]

This feels likena good transition. I doubt there is much content left in the NFT game world and there is definitely an audience for covering older and lesser known games. I certainly will be happy to see you covering any games you end up choosing in the future.

[@jauwn]

I'm gonna do both, I've got a new retro review and a crypto video both in the works right now. Anything I enjoy talking about, I'll make videos on!

[@recklesflam1ngo968]

The speedrun of Arabian Nights at GDQ is one of my favourites. Absolutely hilarious all the way through

[@schwarzmaler7149]

This has to be the game for which they dropped the 'A'

[@larrymantic2635]

BWEEAUGH

[@PugandOwn]

​@@schwarzmaler7149 iirc this was an awful block game

[@MDHilgersom]

That was my only experience with this game before this vid. Absolutely crazy

[@DataProwler]

​@@PugandOwn It absolutely was Awful Block. Both times.

[@novelezra]

I had this game as a kid and it mystified me. When I got older, I kept seeing Prince of Persia 3D and thinking 'is that the game I played?! It can't be... I swear it looked nothing like this' Seeing this video was like a baptism of nostalgia and I thank you for helping me find this incredible game that I will not be playing.

[@ImTheKingOfHyrule]

What's even stranger, aside from how chronologically close the two released, is that Prince of Persia 3D's Dreamcast port was renamed "Arabian Nights: Prince of Persia." It's almost like they wanted people to think the two games were connected somehow.

[@thegamingprozone1941]

​@ImTheKingOfHyrule Yeah, I was also confused

[@saffral]

Hey, they used the old Tomb Raider 1 controls of arrow keys to move, Alt for jump, and Ctrl for attack/action. Can't speak for the rest of them, but those controls would've felt more normal back in the day. Arguably more normal than WASD would've.

[@jauwn]

yeah, that's why i kept it with the original controls. i grew up with late 90s PC games so i totally understand the context of why the controls are that way. They do suck but controlling the game is even harder because of the clunky way your character moves, like he keeps walking a further 2 feet after releasing forward

[@ricardobelogeneralplastro1319]

@@jauwn Thats the devs taking cue from Prince of Persia's momentum... it feels really out of place here where theres much tighter need for movement.

[@Gatorade69]

Yeah I can definitely see the Tomb Raider influence. Personally I always hated the movement of Tomb Raider. Like I know a lot of people have nostalgia for Tomb Raider but when I think of Tomb Raider I get a shiver down my spine "Ewww Tomb Raider." I do see the influence it has had though and it was always fun locking the butler in the freezer.

[@saffral]

@@Gatorade69 I enjoy how reliable it is and how much control the player has over it. Most games try to be smart and interpret what the player wants from context. Makes for a much smoother experience overall, but when it doesn't do what the player wants, it feels frustrating. In Tomb Raider your actions feel like your own actions. Unless you get stunlocked in a corner or the camera gives you a hard time. I definitely enjoy the gameplay for what it was, but I can understand why nobody makes games like that anymore. Kind of like when verb or contextual adventure games took over from text parsers.

[@Gatorade69]

@@saffral Personally my thoughts on the game came from playing it when I was younger and I have never gone back to the series. My biggest gripe was the camera and the movement felt clunky (as opposed to something like Mario 64 which had you doing similar jumps). Plus the graphics were kind of bad on the PS1. That PS1 dithering was really bad on rocky textures and a lot of the time it was hard to see where to go but maybe the PC versions were better and more clear ? Those were my biggest problems with the game. There's remastered versions of the first 3 of games coming out, I'd be interested to see how much is changed

[@byunnybun]

RIP the iconic "The Least Offensive French Game" title and meme thumbnail 😪

[@jauwn]

Haha someone suggested I change it and i figured the old one has lasted for a while, might as well try this one for a bit

[@skrrrtsusman3450]

nothing about this game gets me more than one princess being paris hilton despite being arabian

[@dehavillandcanadatwinotter9621]

I’ve seen Arabian people who look very European

[@Crotaro]

Oh the horror when you realize you accidentally quicksaved just before death. The last time it happened to me was in exactly the same way it happened to you here. I was playing Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy and there's this part where you have to jump onto a hanging mining cart of sorts, let it carry you a little bit and then jump onto a relatively large platform. But the platform had this small ledge-thing and the distance was about the max force jump distance during that point of the game. I listened to Jaden fall to death about ten or so times before accepting my fate and restarting the level. I can't remember if F9 and F10 were quickload and quicksave by default or if I changed quicksave from F5 to F10 (because then I don't need to travel across the entire keyboard), but from that moment on, I made sure to keep these two keys far away from each other.

[@KasumiRINA]

Yup, I always change save to either F5 or F6 and keep load on F9 or 10.

[@Jojithehorse]

Would love to see some more reviews of older obscure games like this from you!

[@Likemea]

🚫 We're sorry, we couldn't load your profile. Try again later!

[@theuncannyalex]

love 2 kiss my father in law for magic reasons

[@papasalvo]

.....who in the fuck decided to make a big ass "Gold Coin" animation appear on ur screen EVERY TIME u pick up a coin? What the fuck were they smokin?

[@BagelBagelBagelBa]

Gold Coin 🟡

[@KazumaTheTraitor]

Crack

[@MrfnordTim]

0:20 I'm not sure the Arabian Nights counts as "one story."

[@ProjectRedfoot]

@@MrfnordTim one thousand one stories lol

[@baumdf9134]

​@@ProjectRedfootno 1001 nights

[@lilheinz9496]

This video made me feel like I'm having hallucinations after watching Aladdin and playing ZOOTn64 then falling asleep with a 104° fever.

[@DarkArtistKaiser]

You know watching this game tells me two things. 1. Nostaligia is a hell of a drug, that, or people had alot more tolerance for this shit then. 2. I think it should be not mystery now why the company was going under when this was made.

[@ARStudios2000]

I think people just had more tolerance for it back then due it being new at the time

[@Laxhoop]

Gotta love those old 3D action adventure games that were designed like point and click adventures.

[@That-KidDo]

Jason!

[@DanielLimaaa]

Amazing video! I had this game when I was a kid and never got passed the first princess. Now I'm glad younger me dropped this and never picked it up. Older me is really thankful for this video tho, I also think Jauwn has a thing for suffering, but that's just my guess

[@aerendyll]

I grew up mainly with PC games and this jank feels strangely nostalgic. I doubt I'd ever subject myself to playing this game, though.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Time to play Gothic with the original control scheme.

[@ShallowContrarian]

When you spoke about the music I was actually shocked to hear that it was arabic inspired drum and bass, until I realised you didn't mean dnb. Would've been hilarious if this game had a thumping rave ost.

[@jauwn]

No I do mean dnb lol. It’s breakbeats mixed with traditional instruments

[@ShallowContrarian]

@@jauwn I see lol, I got the wrong impression after the part about the music being too loud during cutscenes. It was certainly a trend during that era but it's hilariously out of place, like system shock 2. Great video by the way!

[@crystalgoddess4085]

The original story (or rather stories) was not originally called Arabian Nights, it was first called One Thousand and One Nights or in Arabic "Alf Layla wa-Layla". It was more a series of 1,000 stories within a story, as they were told from the perspective of the storyteller, Scheherazade, who was telling these tales to basically stall her execution, but by the 1,001st night, the king was so enthralled by Scheherazade. Anyway, in regards to this game, wow, calling this game dated would be too polite, it looks absolutely awful, even by 2001 standards. I am glad (most) games have genuinely advanced in leaps and bounds, sure there are still stinkers today, but they are few and very far between. That control scheme sounds literally rather painful as well, I'm glad it's gotten to the point where WASD movement is basically universal and most games have controller support in some way. I did a bit of digging and it seems the most recent and well known mention of anything related to One Thousand and One Nights in games would be the mobile game Fate/Grand Order, with Scheherazade appearing as a Caster class Servant. Her attacks all referencing the tales in one way or another, including Aladdin and the Genie. Her personal interlude is a reference to it as well, as it's her regaling the Master (player) with the tales of their own travels.

[@1Hol1Tiger]

It's from 2001!?!? Shit I thought it was from the early 90's

[@clementpoon120]

@@1Hol1Tigerimagine messing up 3d controls in 2001, all they had to do was to play half life

[@TheBonkleFox]

There was also Sonic & The Secret Rings

[@Biouke]

I thought "Arabian Nights" was just how they generally translated "The 1001 Nights" in the English-speaking world.

[@eins2001]

There is also a really awesome pinball machine called Tales of Arabian Nights

[@eulbobo]

The "camel vendor" holding dollars is... unexpected

[@favoritemustard3542]

Should've been a 💰 lol

[@Zomby_Goast]

I don't think I've seen another game where every single aspect of it imaginable has aged so poorly.

[@other_horizon1085]

then do i have the game for you, try ARA NGC

[@cursedryona6265]

Beyond poorly aged, this was literal centuries behind the curve.

[@Joe90h]

Custer's Revenge for the Atari 2600 probably has it beat.

[@Raximus3000]

More like was never completed!

[@thelo-fidelityarchive597]

​@@Joe90h Custer's Revenge was most likely in poor taste even for it's time if the few cited links I can access on the wikipedia article for the game are anything to go by.

[@arthurhayon6957]

9:56 a "dangerous jumps" is juste the traduction to "un saut perieux" in French the team did not know how to speak English, only my guest great vid love your style :)

[@jauwn]

Someone else said this and you’re probably right, good catch. Thanks!

[@dr.cornwater2886]

Your style works for pretty much any type of game or media and I've enjoyed every video so far man. Love that you approach every game or topic with good faith, even the NFT games you play. It makes your reviews feel genuinely honest. Keep up that energy and I think you can make a video on any topic you want!

[@jauwn]

Thank you! I try my best to give every game an equal chance

[@waarschijn]

I think TheKotti played a significant role in the revival of this game. He speedran it in a major event and told viewers to vote for the game on GOG.

[@NoxDolore]

This crashes the game. "NO-"

[@rottytopszombiewaifu5249]

"Maybe there really aren't that many." Shantae and Monster World IV: Are we a joke to you?

[@KasumiRINA]

Also anything Aladdin is mix of 1001 nights stories, Al with the lamp himself, but elements of the cave are from Ali Baba and 40 thieves and Magic Carpet has its own story.

[@backslash_iii]

Add back in the flickering weirdness, lower the framerate to about 12 or 15, then set you resolution to 640x480 for the true Win98 experience.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

And use a 17'' CRT. Because blurry upscaling from a TFT simply can't hold up with a perfectly crunchy dot matrix.

[@velmi_malenkaja_zabka]

The most realistic part is that annoying man telling you the same story to ask for money every time he sees you

[@crizmeow8394]

Omg I’ve miss this kind of content so much, niche, strange little games are my favorite.

[@jauwn]

I’m glad you enjoy it! I’ll do more

[@jackonline8173]

All the years i've thought, that this game was kind of a fever dream, that i've mistaken for Prince of Persia. I remember playing a shareware version of this game back in the day, on a family computer, that me and my siblings used (as far as i remember it, my brother got a CD, from a weird and kind of naughty german magazine with a bunch of shareware games and some usefull software on it and some naughty, pornographic pictures). I never could remember the title of the game (all because i thought ,i played some kind of a Prince of Persia bootleg), but now i know, this was an actual game, that came out. Thanks for that, i appreciate it (it gave me some weird memories back 😅).

[@QuintusCunctator]

The only positive thing I can say about the game is: it harkens back to a moment in time where game publishers and developer were still experimenting with ideas, themes and controls. Of couse, it would have been better if they were competent... but I'll take Arabian Nights over a pay-to-win dreg any day of the week. It's... memorable, at the very least.

[@HimePenguin]

Well you say that. But this wasn't a game released in the mid 90s. This was released 2001. For comparison, here are some other games released 2001: Jak and Daxter Conker's Bad Fur Day Ico And here are some games released the very next year: Ratchet and Clank Sly Cooper Super Mario Sunshine

[@marcellosilva9286]

This game came out a YEAR after Rune, a Viking-themed, third-person action-adventure game very similar in style to this, protag's always facing forward and both feature a lot of combat and platforming, but there is one very important difference: It used WASD + Mouse controls, making it a _lot_ faster, more intuitive and just feels better to play. There's more weapon variety and each weapon is associated with a different spell so early-game weapons can still compete with late-game equipment when it comes to versatility and since it's an american game, finding proper voice actors was easy so the story is treated seriously. Oh, and you can move while attacking too.

[@AnaesthaeticX]

​@@HimePenguinthese were console exclusives. PC gaming was viewed by game devs/publishers as an afterthought back then.

[@milliondollarmistake]

also the titties

[@LagrangePoint0]

@@HimePenguin Max Payne and Halo too

[@bloodrunsclear]

One of the rare instances of confusing the pitch document for the game manual apparently. If Bioshock did that you’d believe the game took place in deep space and you were fighting cultists…

[@Beebles190]

I can't imagine how it must feel to play this game without a guide without going insane. That being said, I kind of adore old, obscure games like this that feel like you're living through a fever dream that has /some/ kind of logic, but not any logic from planet Earth.

[@BebopBerserker]

Mom: We have Prince of Persia at home The Prince of Persia at home:

[@tombrady1434]

The GDQ run of this game is absolutely part of the greater video game history.

[@RetroAmateur1989]

1:41 Don't you mean its....BREASTtaking 3D animations?

[@splendidcyan]

The dialogue with the protagonist around the women is So Much 😭 between it and the way the guy looks it feels like this was like, some 1950s movie tie-in

[@StefanoTheBrazilian]

This was one of the few games I've had on my PC as a kid. Never even came close to finishing a single chapter back then. Recently I bought the game, didn't follow any walkthroughs, got stuck on Chapter 1. Best game ever!

[@ivan.i.gerasimov]

I watched my classmates play it when I was in 1st and 2nd grade, those jiggle physics on a 144p screen made me feel some type of way

[@StarrChild.]

This was a really fun watch and perfect content for your style of humour and videos. I wouldn't mind more vids like this of old games that you struggle to work on your pc to then suffer through the hours of gameplay for us :D

[@jauwn]

thank you :) i will make more

[@zainniazi2257]

Man, I remember my mom getting me this for my birthday on the way back from getting groceries. I had asked for prince of Persia 2.

[@underfan47]

Bless her, that's probably what she thought this was

[@KasumiRINA]

TBH because of weird PS1 era name changes I assumed this review was for some pre Sands of Time Prince of Persia title. Honest!

[@D_R11]

I wonder if the Tolkien estate knows/knew of the company being called “Silmarils” and having 3 gemstones in their logo…

[@justindenton599]

I always passed by this video when scrolling through your channel... but there's just something about that new thumbnail that has me intrigued.

[@tichyad213]

Nice to see somthing different, i mean to play all of this crypto games must have been exhausting.

[@jauwn]

yeah, gotta keep innovating otherwise my channel will die when crypto dies

[@spicy_seagull]

The close inventory sound being the reverse of the open inventory sound is my absolute favorite part Nvm kissing the Sultan is better

[@donke6012]

this was fantastic. even though i'm subbed to a lot of youtubers that play old games...some old media still gets through. please do more. you have a really calm and nice speaking voice. while venting about the game. it made great bg noise as I did things.

[@RomanceDawn17]

Dangerous jump is probably juste translated directly from french "saut périlleux" which means a flip

[@jauwn]

Haha I bet you're right, that's a fun fact

[@jesseystrangelove]

i find it funny how the main characters look so white despite the setting.

[@jauwn]

Least whitewashed French media

[@kanjonojigoku8644]

And all the women are wearing modern panties and bras... Very ancient Arabian...

[@BooksandBuns]

​@@kanjonojigoku8644& one of them is even blonde!

[@littlewings2482]

@@BooksandBuns There are blonde arabs though like that palestinian girl ahed tamimi and these stories though described as "arabian" spanned across north africa,persia,central asia and even south asia.

[@BooksandBuns]

@@littlewings2482 huh, that's cool. I didn't know that

[@mikegarland4500]

I am so glad there are people like you who are willing to sacrifice their sanity to bring us content like this. I may have heard mention of this game back in the day, but I don't think I would have even attempted to get far in it, seeing as how frustrating it was at every turn. Thanks for showing us this.

[@TheMrCtoer]

The Arabian Nights speedrun from AGDQ was so good, it got me into playing the Hitman games.

[@killergrooves2438]

That control scheme was pretty standard for PC games in the 90s. Most games used the arrow keys and you’d use your left hand for movement and your right hand for the mouse. I didn’t start using WASD until the 2000s when games started forcing you to. But games like Dark Forces, Rainbow Six, heck even Chex Quest, all used the arrow keys to move by default.

[@frantisekvrana3902]

I still use Arrow keys. This is my standard keybindings: Arrows for Move, Num0 for Sneak, (Right) Ctrl for Jump, Decimal for Activate, (Right) Shift for Run, Delete for Inventory.

[@tylerh2548]

That smuggler counter-negotian scene was hilarious... To somebody

[@Zharizard666]

34:34 That giggle is gonna torture me in the shape of nightmares

[@michaelthomas5433]

TBF forearms still phase into faces in modern games so.. also why does the protagonist sort of look like Todd Howard?

[@setlerking]

Jauwn came outta nowhere with content that rivals established guys like mandalore, covering a really interesting and underreported niche of games. I have to say, a very, very good channel and im glad to have found it. Any branching into other stuff is sure to have my interest as well

[@jauwn]

What kind words ❤️

[@douglassun8456]

I was going to say, this reminds me of Mandalore's review of The Ring.

[@ARStudios2000]

​@@jauwnyou and MandaloreGaming should have a Collab! He can even show you to old games that wouldn't make you want to hang yourself

[@patagum8289]

The voice lines the MC keeps making anytime he talks about princesses is agony. The faces are great though, they're just so goofy!

[@jasonjones7461]

I'm grateful to you and every other KZbinr that suffers through these old ridiculous obscure games. Thanks to you these gaming eras are documented and accessible. Given how quickly technology can improve and games advance. It's an unfortunate reality that game preservation isn't catching all the titles before they slip through the cracks. For example, the semi recent closure of the Nintendo 3ds and WiiU digital eShops had a lot of true gaming gems that were indie titles available nowhere else. There's a little known survival horror series called "Silver Falls" that is made by a low resource one man studio "Sungrand". On 3ds he eventually had a total of an impressive 6 games released. Of these games, 3 were released mere weeks before the permanent closure of the shop. They were literally only available for an absurdly short period of time. His first game was released in a very broken glitchy state and had very poor sales and low reviews scores due to the glitches. Those glitches were fixed, and the 5 other 3ds games released were received well and the series now has a well deserved small but loyal fan base. He also released a great Silver Falls game on the WiiU eShop right before it closed as well. Now aside from a couple that have been remastered and released on Switch ,most of these now exist nowhere else but as digital copies on random fans consoles. As the series continues to grow and gain popularity ppl will inevitably become interested in the earlier games in the series only to struggle to find much about them, let alone actual copies of the game to play. So just channels like yours, uploading gameplay of different obscure games is really doing a great service

[@Ghost_Matter]

OH NO NOOOO! NOT THE BEES! NOT THE BEES! AARRRGHJHH, OH NO MY EYES MY EYES! AARUHGHEHFGGGG

[@jauwn]

you know we're old when we remember that meme, classic 2008 internet

[@scp-682-cu6]

I coulda sworn this was named "least offensive french game" or something, and had a different thumbnail. hmmmmnmmmNmm

[@jauwn]

yeah i changed it, you're not crazy

[@WillaGem]

I love the crocodile man

[@gdark67]

I never knew I needed a 12-second cutscene of a crocodile enemy before watching this video. Now my life is complete!

[@Grendelynden]

>zooms in on a peach "Ali's lust for this ripe pear" ???

[@Chemical_Blue]

Honestly, the champion being that drunk old man would be an incredible epic twist.

[@mariabergh8530]

Oh my god, I've tired to beat this game when I was a child! The music, ambient and sound effects in this game are still very cool, but russian localization voices vere so much better and more fitting than the english one Edit: thanks to your video, I'm glad I've never spent too much time on this game anyway. It seemed beautiful and intruiging back in 2002-2003, but hideous in 2023

[@jauwn]

That’s awesome! I never played this as a kid but I can imagine if I did I would not have had a good time. It was hard enough beating it as an adult

[@dividedbyzero96]

@@jauwn I also had this game as a kid - obviously the weird erotic stuff went completly over my head back then. I think the reason why the screens between chapters seem like a popup ad, as you said, is because the game was distributed as shareware back then. The version I had only included chapter 1 and the rest you had to pay for. The chapter 1 end screen was an ad for the rest of the game lol

[@cernunnos_lives]

OMG I can't believe what u did this time for content. Heroic effort. Amazing that Parrots grow from seeds.

[@freaquin]

"developed by french company silmarils" *having sudden flashbacks to robinson's requiem*

[@lordedmundblackadder9321]

I'm loving these old obscure game reviews. Keep it up, baby!

[@kentnewsworthy9229]

Cool variation of your type of videos, i think you're commentary abd criticism is entertaining regardless of the game

[@Igorath]

the arrow keys WERE the default movement method back then but somehow it got changed to the wasd pattern. other keys were ctrl, alt, and spacebar for actions.

[@DStecks]

I can't help but wonder if they were going for something satirical and it was just lost in translation. That's the only way I can rationalize the "Arabian Princesses" looking like Swedish models, that is such a 1960's-ass creative choice that it's hard to imagine people in the 21st century making it unironically.

[@NdieCity]

Honestly, it gives me the same vibes as that one meme of the white dude in the Egyptian headpiece. Its just so on-the-nose silly that there's no way it came from a place of genuine ignorance, haha

[@trianglemoebius]

​@@NdieCity At least King Ted (the meme you're referencing) made sense in context. It's from the display art for a slot machine called Pharaoh's Fire, and "Ted" was supposed to be the person playing - like, 'play this slot machine and it'll be so magical you'll feel like your in ancient Egypt!'. Is that incredibly stupid? Yes. But at least 'Ted' being white has context, and in fact him being out-of-place is required to get the point across. This game is just... absurd.

[@NdieCity]

@@trianglemoebius thank you so much for telling me the context for that, i'm laughing my ass off rn

[@goranisacson2502]

I feel like on some level this is a plot meant to be satirical and light-hearted (why else would they have you kissing the sultan too in the end), but in terms of massaging the players willingness to laugh along with the game you might need level design and controls that aren't... well... aboslutely horrendous. Good God. I remember so many PC demos played over the years with so many experimental "how the hell do we even do 3D movement"-styles from people who WEREN'T Shigeru Miyamoto and his team polishing up Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time. Hard to be willing to roll with and laugh at the games silly jokes when the jokes are A. ALL the game has and B. delivered to an audience so ungodly pissed off after trying to navigate a game where you're lucky if a puzzle can't be softlocked and where you can only sort of HOPE your jumps will get you where you want to go. But as bizarre as this game is, it's also important BECAUSE it's bad- this is evidence of the struggles we lived through. The children must know of games like Arabian Nights lest they think stuff like Tomb Raiders slightly awkward tank controls were as awkward as it got. They must know games like THIS were our options. Only then can they appreciate how far we've come.

[@Nogardtist]

dude you went from 2K subs to 32K+ your effort finally paid off

[@megahedgehog2039]

There's something about the thumbnail that makes me happy

[@KasumiRINA]

I dunno, American woman with grandma panties and pushup bra doesn't really scream Arabian nights but hey, she's likely doing yoga and belly dancing between nail salon visits and selling Amway door to door.

[@Trivial_Whim]

Yeah, the heyday of mass media versions of Arabian myth was between the thirties and fifties. There are practically no video games, but if you look up films there are an overwhelming number. It was just the place to steal your stories from for a while there. My favorite is a 1930s version of Aladdin where he's accompanied by an old man only referred to as "The Bird Of Evil" who does a few acrobatic tricks and sneaks around (poorly), but every other cast member seems to studiously ignore unless he's in a disguise. Incidentally, the version of Arabian Nights that exists now is not the original. It was taken from the region by the French in one crusade, adapted to make the setting seem more mystical and wonderous, then got taken back into the region on a later crusade and was more popular than the original, supplanting it. It's a really neat bit of history trivia. Technically, we do still have copies of the original version, they just aren't anything more than historic artifacts.

[@curtisyue182]

Theres a band called Kamelot thats got a song called “Nights of Arabia”. Good song, but the lyrics never made sense to me until i read the comments on this video.

[@concretel10n]

Ah, the "guess what I'm thinking" puzzle game - everyone's favourite

[@princessmaly]

*absolutely baffling insane kiss cutscene* Me: WHAT?!?! This dude: That's awesome.

[@readyplayerone5220]

This game is the Murphy's law of early 3D games.