The Collection Chamber: AZUR & ASMAR

Immerse yourself in the world of One Thousand and One Nights. Experience a captivating adventure full of secrets, surprises, and delights!

Your Task

Take on the role of Azur the acrobat, or Asmar the warrior, and free the fairy from the djinn.

Explore over 20 exciting levels, including vast palaces, dark caves, and hostile deserts teeming with bandits, giant spiders, and unpredictable traps.

Prepare to overcome the most daunting challenges: charm the Simurgh bird and feed the Scarlet Lion.

Find the magic keys and use their magical powers! Your skill and speed will be tested to complete the adventures.

Puzzles, action, and skill make Azur and Asmar the ultimate game!

~ translated from the back of the French box

There's a certain allure to Azur & Asmar: The Princes' Quest, the first computer-animated outing from Michel Ocelot. Coming off the back of his beautifully hand-crafted Kirikou and the Sorceress, this shift to CG was always going to raise eyebrows. And yes, at first glance, it does look rudimentary - stiff faces, limited animation, a certain uncanny stillness. But look closer and it reveals itself as something far more deliberately artistic. It's a living mosaic of Islamic art filled with vibrant colour that compliments its storybook fairy tale. It's less about technical prowess and more about visual poetry.

Unfortunately, the video game adaptation is what the movie threatens to be; cheap, lazy and uninventive. Where the film disguises its limitations with style, the game exposes them with abandon. Characters move like marionettes with tangled strings, environments feel sparsely dressed, and the whole production carries the faint whiff of a rushed tie-in. It didn't exactly get high praise at the time either, with the French gaming press bemoaning its lack of polish and imagination. There are fleeting moments where the source material's aesthetic peeks through, particularly in the level architecture and backgrounds, but they're too few and far between to move the needle on its overall quality. If the film's visuals suggested it was rendered in a PlayStation 2, the game outright states it.

Throughout the level, arrows will show you the way, but if you fall into a trap those light save points help (left).

If you stray the beaten path, you might find a treasure chest, though some need keys to open (right).

Released in only a select few European countries - most prominently in its native France - it started life on Sony's second console. The port to PC seems like it was rushed with little attempt to appease the very different market. It has a distinct lack of options which is fine for a locked console release where everyone will play the same way on the same hardware, but there's no altering of the defaults on PC. You cannot raise or lower the resolution - the game will automatically scale to your desktop. You cannot change your controls either, and while joypads are functional, you're stuck with whatever random configuration the program decides upon. In my testing, the Start button on my X-Box controller was run while clicking the left Thumb brought up the pause menu. A bizarre way to play.

As for the game itself, it's not like its without promise in concept. What we have is a stripped-back cinematic platformer. Movement is handled with the arrow keys, jumping mapped to Space, running to Ctrl, and attack slotted onto Alt. It's simple - perhaps too simple - and clearly aimed at younger players but that would be okay if the fundamentals are solid. Alas, with Azur & Asmar, they're not. Inputs often feel delayed, jumps lack precision, and the combat is a joke. Even at the time, reviewers pointed out how this sluggishness undermined the experience. It's not difficult, so those dodgy controls don't actually inhibit your progress, but it is frustrating.

The game spans around 20-odd levels, each loosely inspired by the film's exotic locales - sun-bleached deserts, echoing caves, ornate palaces. On paper, it sounds promising. In practice, it's a repetitive trek through familiar hazards. You have the well-worn tropes of collapsing platforms, falling debris, spikes, and the occasional oversized beast thrown in for good measure. Collectables are scattered about - gems, tokens, bits of progression fluff - but they rarely feel meaningful. There's a hint of verticality in the level design, with plenty of climbing and careful navigation, but it never becomes anything worthwhile. Within an hour, you'll likely have seen everything the game has to offer. The remaining journey is just déjà vu in different colours.

Some sections have a fixed to give a better view of the area (left).

Green glowing save pads mark the end of the level (right).

A key selling point is the dual-protagonist structure, allowing you to play as both Azur and Asmar. This should add variety with Azur being the more agile climber and Asmar the sturdier fighter, but the differences are negligible. Both handle almost identically, and any distinction is superficial at best. Combat, such as it is, boils down to clumsy sword swings with little feedback or strategy. There's no depth, no sense of progression, just a mechanical obligation to occasionally swat at enemies before moving on. It's a missed opportunity, especially given the film's thematic focus on duality and contrast. Here, the two princes feel less like complementary halves and more like palette swaps.

In the end, Azur & Asmar is a relic of a particular kind of licensed game - functional, forgettable, and clearly produced with a younger audience in mind. But in sanding away complexity, it also strips away identity. The film it's based on is richer, stranger, and far more compelling than its modest visuals initially suggest. The game, meanwhile, is the opposite. Its a promising cinematic platformer that becomes overly formulaic and familiar the more you play. A shame, really. With such a distinctive world to draw from, it could have been something special. Instead, it's just another curio left to gather dust in the bargain bin.

To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber runs natively on Windows. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.

File Size: 321 Mb. Install Size: 616 Mb. Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

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