The Lion King Video Games

The Lion King[]

TLK GameBoy — The cover of *The Lion King* on Game boy Color.

A few video games based on the film have been released. The first, entitled, The Lion King, was published in 1994 by Virgin Group and was released on NES, SNES, Game Boy, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Game Gear, personal computers running DOS and the Commodore Amiga.

In an early beta version (August 1994), the levels went under different names from the final level. The Stampade was "Wildebeast", "Hakuna Matata" was "Willow Cascade", "Simba's Destiny" was "Rafikis Chase", "Be Prepared" was "Junge Caverns", "Simba's Return" was "Hyenas Lairs" and "Pride Rock" was "Evil Scar Boss".

The Lion King: Simba's Mighty Adventure[]

Main Article: Simba's Mighty Adventure

The second, entitled The Lion King: Simba's Mighty Adventure, was published on December 22, 2000 by Activision and was released on PlayStation and Game Boy Color.^[1]

Timon & Pumbaa's Jungle Games[]

Main Article: Timon & Pumbaa's Jungle Games

In 1996, Disney Interactive and 7th Level released Timon & Pumbaa's Jungle Games on personal computers under the Disney Gamebreak brand. In November 1997, it was released on Super SNES.^[2] The game includes one where Pumbaa uses his gas to destroy fruits and bugs (and even a kitchen sink)that fall out of trees, a variation on a pinball game, a game where you use a peashooter to hit enemy creatures in the jungle, a game where Timon has to jump onto hippos over a river to deliver bugs to Pumbaa, and a variation on Tetris.

The Lion King for GameBoy Advance[]

Gameboy cover — The cover of *The Lion King 1½* video game

A third game was published in 2003 simply called The Lion King for Game Boy Advance in Europe and Asia. Another Game Boy Advance video game based on the direct-to-video prequel/midquel, The Lion King 1½, was released in 2003.^[3] Timon and Pumbaa are playable characters, though Simba is not playable at all, his childhood character only appearing as a supporting role.

Kingdom Hearts II[]

Part of the main plot of The Lion King is retold in the 2005 Square Enix PlayStation 2 game Kingdom Hearts II. The characters of the film appear in "The Pride Lands", one of the many Disney "worlds" in the game. The plot is altered and new dialogue was recorded to accommodate the presence of the three main protagonists (Sora, Donald Duck and Goofy). Simba also appears as a Summon and Summon Card in Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, respectively.

Trivia[]

The original videogame published by Virgin Group is considered to be one of the hardest games made, notably because of the "Can't Wait to be King" level. On Reddit, the Lead Artist (username joseph4th) spoke up apologizing for objecting to the idea of making the level fun instead of possible to die in.^[4]