Back in the 90's Disney was at an all time high with its movies, you had everything from The Little Mermaid all the way to Aladdin and all of them had their licence games. I always consider Lion King to be the cream of the crop in the 90's, It had everything from its grade A sound track to memorable long lasting characters and even though it used the main plot point of Hamlet it was still a great flick. About 4 months after the release Disney brought the tie in game to stores on December 1994. My sister eventually got the game for the Super Nintendo because at the time I was four. She always let me play it now and again and I could never figure out how to get passed the second level and always wonder how she got to the later stages. About a year ago I purchases a Snes and when i saw the cart on Ebay I couldn't help myself and pick it up for 7 dollars. So I'm going to remove my nostalgia glasses and see if this is a movie tie in is done right.
My number one pet peeve when it comes to licence games is they don't follow the plot of the film, they create a side story or something so far fetch from the narrative that you wonder why studios waste money on something that was handed to them on a plater from Hollywood. I can say without out a doubt that Lion king doesn't suffer from this problem and follows the plot to a teeth but only shows it in the level design. There is very little story telling through dialogue and cut-scenes and with that being said, its hard to recommend this game without watching the film before hand because the game runs on the ability to use nostalgia of seeing the levels to create a great player experience. Just like the film the game follows the plot to a teeth, with very little being left out. One of Lion King's major flaws is that it does tell the story in a symbolic way but with out seeing the film, the player will have a hard time connecting the levels to plot points in the movie while jump from platform to platform along the way.
I give praise were praise should be given and in the presentation department Virgin Interactive hit it right. Just the music alone gave me a smile in all its 16 bit glory and mixing the graphics that take the hand drawn Disney style and colour pallet. helping create a great movie tie in. I was really surprised just how well the Snes sound chip match the score of the movie, I came to a part were Hakuna Matata started to play and I could to hear it sound like the big screen counter part, the one I knew so well while growing up and it match melody note for note as I progressed through the level. The only flaw I could find with the presentation is that sound effects that are played will become annoying just by the sheer repetitiveness of the amount of times you will hear it. There is very little variety in that department as there is only one death and roar sound and so on and so forth. Virgin brought in Disney animators to draw a lot of the characters and levels and it shows. No two levels are the same as vibrant colours fill the screen, you go from psychedelic jungles to dark caverns filled with bright red lava. A movie tie in should replicate the presentation of the film and Lion King proves this is the best part about this game.
Lion King starts like you typical cutesy platformer, you will roar, swipe and jump your way through 10 levels, going mostly from right to left with one exception and solving little puzzles along the way. The first level is pretty tame but boy does that change when you hit the second level. The game decides to start demanding precision timing and it only gets worse from there on out, with things like falling rocks and difficult enemies to contend with. This is one of greatest flaws with this game because only the most hardcore gamers will be able to plough through to the end and with a set number of lives and continues will mean starting back from square one. Tuning down the difficulty just effects the enemies hit ratio, changing very little. At the half way point you will gain the ability to swipe and throw hennas and leopards, this changes the game from a simple point a to b platformer to something with a little more action to it. Lion King may be your cutesy childhood tie in game but with the advance difficulty and technique you need to progress, will make it more accustom to someone more in the hardcore vain.
The struggle with Lion King on the Snes is that it requires sheer amount of patient and mastering of the controls to get very far in the game, mix in the lives and continue system and then you got a combination that will be tough for any gamer to complete. There is a trick as by entering the code B,A,R,R,Y will enable the cheat system for you to tamper with creating the ability to have continuous lives but even still it's going to be a hard ten levels. If you haven't even seen the movie, I would recommend watching it first before picking up this game, as it will be confusing and it doesn't really give any narrative quality to the player. That being said that game does go hand and hand with the movie as the score and level design match the movie bit by bit. Though a difficult to the averaged gamer, people who are a fan of the film should pick up this game for your Snes Console.