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Hi everybody ! It's Hooper
and today we meet again with a cult video game.
One more.
A mythic game which left its mark on its time, as they say...
Nah just kidding, it's just a nice video game.
released in 1994 on most of 8 and 16 bits consoles.
The Lion King.
It caused a bit of a stir back then,
even though -once again- it wasn't that awesome,
It was way far from the flagship platform games of that period.
But...
they managed to keep the particular ambiance of The Lion King,
the character animation is very well done,
The music themes are taken directly from the OST of the film.
For all that, it was pleasant, enjoyable playing.
And The Lion King -the animated movie- was very successful,
it was released the same year in movie theatres,
it was excellent and I remember having seen it twice.
Because of all that, my "special favourite".
But without further ado let's get into the review.
Let's hurry.
As you'll see, we can play both young and grown-up Simba,
and the game remains faithful to the plot of the film.
We can see the whole plot within a dozen of levels.
We begin as a cub, then later we can play old Simba.
As you can see, the animation isn't bad at all,
they've done a pretty good job.
Now for the movement we can do a roll like this.
It's for... well I'll show you later.
Of course we can jump like this ... or more like that.
It can roar.
You see on the top left of the screen, a roarbar that fills progressively...
There, if I roar now, it becomes empty.
It frightens the bad guys, I'll show you.
That's about all Simba can do.
But old Simba can do other things.
Look, the animation is neat when it hangs on.
It's kinda impressive for 16 bit machines. On the 8 bit it's not so well.
Ah there we have a porcupine;
if I jump on it... -the basic attack is jumping on ennemies-
if I jump on it, since it's a porcupine it'll hurt me...
so I roar, it turns around... and then I can attack it.
So that's it for the background informations.
As you can see, most ennemies can be killed by jumping on them.
These things, the bigoleop... the bigco lepto...
big coleopteras -I can do it-
All you need to do is roar and they explode.
And that's it!
A very classic platform game.
The levels are very similar,
except for few ones which are pretty original, the others are really...
It boils down to pretty much the same thing. It's a pity!
There you can see an insect-thingy.
Look what happens when I get it...
Poof, it increased my lifebar on the top right.
We can also increase our roarbar...
But there I activated the checkpoint symbolized by Simba's picture.
What was I saying ?
Yes the insect-thingies!
You'll see there's a lot of them.
I think there are some of them over here...
There's an 1-up here.
It is a pretty hard game Don't be mistaken.
You might think it's an easy game for young people but it's pretty hard.
Despite the continues,
and despite the difficulty select option -i.e. Easy, Normal, Hard-
even in Easy difficulty, it remains quite hard.
Some parts are... -Crap, where was I going ?-
Some parts makes you lose your head.
So as I told you, the plus points are the themes.
They really took the themes of the film.
Pratically the whole OST is there.
It sure not sounds as astonishing as in the movie since it's on SNES.
It's no CD quality, we don't get orchestral rendition.
However they managed to create something wonderful I think.
And voilĂ .
The animations are more than convincing!
Oh I wanted to show you something...
This sort of big blue beetle increases your roarbar.
And Poof! it's increased a bit!
After I'll show you grown-up Simba. You'll see other movements.
like clawing, lacerating ennemies,
we can even make judo techniques.
But before that I'll show you the second level with lil simba.
There we have a mini boss. A hyena, like in the movie.
Just wait for it to be exhausted
When it's exhausted, just jump two...
You just jump two times on it... and there you go !
Not that hard, it's just the beginning of the game...
Then we have a Bonus Stage with Pumbaa.
Along the game, we'll have bonus stages with either Pumbaa or Timon,
-I think Timon is the name-
We control Pumbaa, moving it left to right to catch as many insects as possible.
It becomes hard quite quickly because Timon lets some fall slowier than others.
We have one bonus that makes Pumbaa burp.
*** ! You see ? I had to burp because I was on the edge.
No mistake allowed, we must get it right...
Ah ***... They were on both sides
Thirty eight... yesh it's not the best I can do...
So there'll be little bonus stages like this throughout the game,
in the other bonus stages we control Timon,
it's in the same kind, we just have to avoid some beetles.
And there we have one of the few original stages of the game.
Because we have to use the roar on the pink monkeys...
We get close to the pink monkeys, we roar to make them change position,
and by doing this we'll get propelled, thanks to the rhino, through the stage.
It's kinda easy there,
but near the end there'll be like 7 or 8 pink monkeys.
you'll have to shout on some, and not on others,
and that's crapy... I mean tricky You must be careful!
Here we are on the back of an ostrich, another original part.
Oh crap it got blocked... Damn!
It was whether stoop or jump on that pink pigs.
Oh no I came back to the beginning of the stage!
Let's hurry up!!
That's it, I just wanted to introduce you to the game.
What else did I want to tell you ?
I will stop video reviews for...
-No no, this way first I've to roar at the monkeys-
I'll stop video reviews for a month or so to have vacation.
And so I'll be back in September.
There are still a lot of games I want to review...
Reviews on old consoles like Saturn, 3DO,...Things like that.
So rendezvous early September. This will be my last video for July and August...
Will I manage to pass this part ?
Here it's pretty easy, because they hint us with the arrows.
But shortly after, we get the same area but without the arrows.
What else can I say about this ? I think I said about everything.
On one hand it's short but on the other, it's quite hard.
I mean, there are only a dozen of levels, but if you know the game well,
If you have enough skill... Daaamn
If you have enough skill, you can finish the game within 1 hour or so.
It's a bit like the other games back then,
as soon as you really know the game, you can finish it on the go.
But as you can see, you can die easily
ex: falling on the water... No way !
Just falling as I do because I suck and you lose 1 life.
Man!
After this I'll show you some adult Simba gameplay,
I must be dreaming, I once again missed the rhino's tail!
Also I'll show you some mode-7 gameplay when we're chased by wildebeestes.
It's well done.
Why on earth can't I grab its tail ?!?
Okay... No comment...
*Whistles*
No wait I'll make it!
I didn't remember this part being that hard.
Ah finally...
OK I'm done... I'm done!!!
You see ? It can make you lose your head!
So I'll try to reset but it's gonna...
Yes, I knew it!
It's because of my video capture software, Studio 10,
and most of the time, it does this when I try to reset.
But sometime it's gonna work.
I must insist and it's gonna work.
I could stop capturing and resume but as I record my voice with another software...
I'd have to mess around mixing voice and ingame captures, etc...
But if it still doesn't work in 20 seconds, I'll be forced to do it.
Come on!
What a pain...
I'll tell a joke to keep you entertained...
So... Hum... MAN!
At last! Don't have to be hurry!
It was developed by WestWood Studio, I forgot to tell you.
I'm using a cheat code to get to the level.
We can get invincibility, I'll get it.
And now I'll show you this level.
It's the only level with mode-7.
In the movie, it's the moment Simba get chased by wildebeestes.
It's not that bad and it's rather difficult.
Here I'm invincible, but normally it's pretty tough, once again.
After a while, rocks appear.
All you can do is go from left to right,
and jump like this.
Perhaps I'll show you adult Simba right after,
this way you'd have seen the main part of the game.
I recommend this game to all The Lion King fans.
It sure is a good alternative.
But now, you're not forced to buy it.
Back then it cost 400-450 french francs (~60-72 US dollars) on SNES.
Very expensive for what it was,
but nowadays, on emulation, it's free.
I frankly recommend it to anyone who loved the movie.
Go ahead, you won't be disappointed.
The same musics are there and it's really worth trying it.
Ok, it's starting to be tricky here!
Ok I try another reset.
I hope it won't take forever...
I'll just show you grow-up Simba and we'll stop.
Come ooooooon. You can do it...
***hole!
*Whistles again*
There, see? I knew you could do it.
Alright I'll show you old Simba and that will do until September.
I won't take the invicibility
Let's take... I don't know Let's take Simba's destin.
I'm not even sure it's grown-up Simba. I hope...
Yes it is!
It can't do the roll anymore, as I previously showed.
It can claw and it can, how can I say, lacerate the ennemies.
It also has the ability to roar -obviously-
a bit deeper than the cub.
Ah yes, one little disappointment: the bestiary isn't very rich...
Here there's a panther, but globally we always meet the same ennemies during the game.
They should've made a richer bestiary. That's not really...
You can open the way with your claws.
I'd like to show you a a judo-like attack.
Therefore I must find the right ennemy, it doesn't work with monkeys.
I don't remember if there's an ennemy up there,
a panther somewhere so I can show it to you.
After that you'd have seen the main part of the game.
After, it's up to you to eventually like it or not.
There they come!
VoilĂ ! You see this hold is quite well done...
Frankly, the movements are really well decomposed,
it's impressive for a SNES, once again!
Well, I think that will do for now.
I'm close to death, 1 or 2 hits and I'm KO...
Now I'm dead.
So, we'll stop here.
See you in September.
There are still a handful of games I want to review.
See you and like Schwarzy would say...