If you grew up anytime from the 70’s through the 90’s there is no doubt you were involved with arcades in some fashion. Maybe you were a casual player, dropping some quarters at the laundromat, convenience store, or at some random restaurant. Other were addicted, spending hours at a time playing while bringing rolls of quarters and spreading them out between the glass screen and control panel. Either way there was something very special about arcades growing up, but there was one specific place that i would still say is the best arcade of all time and that is Aladdin’s Castle.
Gamers born too late to experience the era of arcade madness, this article you may not be able to comprehend the importance of Aladdin’s Castle, but I will do my best to convince you why arcades and Aladdin’s Castle were so important for many of us. Aladdin’s Castle was a chain of arcades throughout the country. However I can’t recall ever going to any besides the one in Springfield, MO located inside the Battlefield Mall. The place was massive, covering an entire corner of the mall near the food court. The location was a bit of a tunnel which added another cool element. It had two entrances, one on each end of the food court, and wrapped behind several stores and food court restaurants. As you got closer to the arcade’s location you could hear all the sounds coming from the place. Not to mention all the visuals, a kid could not resist going in, if not just to walk through. Obviously though we wanted to play these awesome looking games, and boy did Aladdin’s Castle ever have them. Sure, some of us had the Nintendo and Sega game consoles as home, but at the time many of these games could only be played in the arcades.
While the location was huge, they packed it full of machines. They crammed machines of various shapes and sizes into every nook and cranny they could find. They also had their own currency system. You had to exchange cash for Aladdin’s Castle tokens, which was an interesting idea. The variety of games they had was astounding to me! You could play classics, new releases and those money grabbing ticket machines. As a side note it seems like the games that give you tickets would only give you enough tickets to buy a plastic frog from the prize counter. Speaking of the prize counter, they sure knew how to sucker you into to thinking you could actually win the big prizes like a Sega Genesis System, or a GI Joe play set. Just look at these two employees. They know they are ripping you off and they also know you LOVE IT!
Back to the regular games, I can remember having my first experiences with arcade games at Aladdin’s Castle that would go onto be some of my favorite games of all time (even if they are considered bad games now). Games such as Operation Wolf, WWF Wrestlefest, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game, and last but not least Bozo’s Grand Prize Game.
As with most of the other awesome places in the Battlefield Mall, Aladdin’s Castle closed in the late 90’s/early 2000’s along with Circus World, KB Toys just to name a few. Arcades now are few and far between. Sure we have some ok stuff at these massive kids places like Incredible Pizza, but to me they are mostly gimmicks. Whether you remember Aladdin's Castle, or were too young to experience how great it was, check out the videos below to take a trip back in time when Arcade games mattered. Please share any memories you have about Aladdin’s Castle in the comments below, and if you like the content I have been putting out on this site, please consider Showing Your Support. C YA!