Jak
Sep 6, 2019

The Lion King review
Only YOU can feel the love tonight

While The Lion King movie from Disney was one of the greatest flukes in history (long story short, it was just meant to be another great film but not the huge blockbuster they wanted Pocahontas to be), the video game based on the Disney animated hit is anything but. On the surface, it’s a sidescrolling platformer where you play through the major set pieces from the movie like the hyena chase, the stampede and Simba coming back to take Pride Rock from his usurping uncle Scar. There is a bit of a quirk with jumping, namely in that you get a higher jump if you hold up on the D-pad and longer if you don’t and it’s a bit easy to get the wrong jump in a pinch, especially on the Genesis version. Besides that, it’s just a really good sidescroller – and that’s all it really needed to be! Well, unique and fantastic would be preferable, but for a licensed game released right around the same time that the movie came out, this is more than what would’ve been expected both back then and 25 years removed from its release.

As it follows the movie, you do play the game as Simba both as a child and as an adult through the movie’s scenes. Child Simba is a bit more platform driven as his offensive capabilities include “roaring” at enemies to stun them and pouncing on said enemies. I point that out because adult Simba slashes and throws instead of pouncing (when he grows up, he apparently can’t use his mass and gravity to take out leopards), and a couple of levels have parts requiring him to take out gangs of enemies before progressing – one with leopard’s nests, and one where you have to kill the hyenas before you can progress to the next part of the level. It’s on that note that, while still well put together, adult Simba isn’t as enjoyable since combat is really, really simple – like taking what would work with enemies that are more like obstacles than anything else, and trying to make a combat-driven game out of it. The last level has you facing Scar a few times, and you have to make him give up before progressing until the final showdown – and said showdown does follow the movie, meaning you’ll have to throw him off Pride Rock – but he takes like a million hits each time. This level doesn’t have checkpoints, by the way, so if you’re just one hit away from taking down Scar but he takes you out, guess what you’re doing all over again!

The takeaway from that paints adult Simba as the worst of the two, which is true – but dammit if, between banal combat, there still isn’t some terrific platforming to be had! Platforms are intricately positioned to elicit just the right amount of challenge. Simba can cling onto ledges fairly easily, and this is something Westwood Studios took well into consideration when putting together segments with thin platforms and the very rare climbing segment... and it’s a good thing that the latter is rare since Simba has to keep jumping up to climb those. It’s great that Simba controls in a rather nimble manner and – besides the aforementioned accidental up-on-the-D-pad inputs – the controls are quite responsive. Tight handling on top of tight level designs makes for a very well done overall experience. There’s also some variety throughout each level, with some focusing more on platforming, some more on puzzling, and even a couple of autoscrollers with one having Simba running at you during the wildebeest stampede and the level is more about jumping over rocks and moving out of the wildebeest’s way. The levels certainly have their own identity beyond just being based on key scenes from the movie.

How hard is this game, you might be inquiring? Well, it starts off innocently enough with the only major sources of difficulty being the jumping thing I talked about before and the monkey puzzle during the second level having a bit of a learning curve itself. Precision jumps and reaction-based obstacles (particularly in the second level with the autoscroller) are peppered in parts of each level. Otherwise, it’s nice and easy enough to get you used to how things work. You better get the hang of it, because once Simba turns into an adult, the game’s difficulty turns nasty with lots of precision platforming that results in instant death as opposed to just setting you back a bit. Many of the deaths you’ll receive are quite fair, because you’d ideally be used to knowing when to hold up on the D-pad and Simba’s overall jumping trajectories, and there are enough health bugs (both to extend your life to a certain point and health restoration) to collect if you get beat up badly enough when fighting hyenas.

You don’t start with any continues, but the first half of the game has many opportunities for you to collect extra lives and continues through getting life bugs or mini game bugs (which either has you controlling Pumba collecting bugs as Timon drops them down Kaboom-style, or controlling Timon to jump up trees to collect bugs), and even the later levels throw some bones at you. At that point, it becomes a matter of getting good with the platforming and the combat if you want to survive the second half of the game. From there, it’s more about adapting to changes, be it level-specific like the stampede and the cave maze, or going from running and jumping to a somewhat more combat-centric style of play. It’s a game that’s definitely harder when you’re like 5 years old and that’s why people remember it being like heaps hard, but a few moments here and there still gave me some trouble despite being in my late 20s. It was great for the platforming segments; with combat being as paper thin as it was, it’s not so great for that.

Still, this is a pretty good game that follows the movie rather well – with levels being structured around its key scenes convincingly not just graphically and aurally, but also in terms of level design and gameplay-specific gimmicks. That isn’t to discard the presentation, especially since the backgrounds match the movie’s very well and the animations are quite fluid, and the soundtrack perfectly recreates the movie’s to the best of the Genesis’s ability. If I was rating the game solely on presentation, it’d be an instant 10/10, no strings attached. But taking the gameplay into consideration, it’s let down a bit by the second half of the game focusing more on combat than platforming. That’s not so good when combat is literally just Simba slashing at hyenas, leopards and eventually Scar. Its platforming segments are certainly tricky but a lot of fun to do, which keeps the adult Simba stages going well. On the whole, The Lion King game provides a fun, well done platforming experience.