Lion Kings mechanics just feel broken throughout most of the game.
The story: On this one I'm not going to tell you the whole story of Lion King because we would be here a while but I will tell you how they adapted it too this game. Ha ha that's funny right, because they did no such thing. Look at a game like Aladdin you got great music while you listen to a worded cutscene, fine right! Well in lion king the only way you know that you are progressing through the story is by the text in each level. I understand that this is the Snes and you shouldn't expect cutscenes but why not do what Aladdin did and make you read the text while you see pictures. Basically what I think they went for in this game is to try telling the story by playing each level because they name each level after some of the scenes in the movie, and that's fine I guess but I just feel like it would have worked better if they would have shown more especially when this game is marketed to little kids.
Presentation: If I found anything enjoyable with this game it would definitely be its presentation. The music is outstanding, great remakes for a sixteen bit console and it adds some immersion to the game because of it. There are even some really impressive parts where the characters actually speak and sure today that's nothing special. But for the time that was for the most part unheard of. So again this is another part they impressed with the presentation in the game. The art style in this game is also done really great there are some levels in this game that look absolutely outstanding, in fact the second level in this game is one of the most beautiful level's I have ever seen in a sixteen bit game.
Gameplay: Oh here we go! This is why I just couldn't like this game, First off let's talk about the biggest flaw in this game, improper platforming mechanics; basically, you fall through the platforms, yeah! How are you supposed to play a platformer when you can't even land properly on the platforms! The next huge problem is having too swing on things, as I mentioned to get on any platform is hard but to get on a small platform to swing on is nearly impossible and once you are able to swing on them it's really hard to swing to the other properly especially if it's a moving platform. This game is probably one of the hardest games on the Snes but for all the wrong reasons. As I mentioned before the platforming, is one reason but there are other mechanics that are also broken, simba as a kid is pretty easy to control but there is a huge problem to how you control him, when you start moving fast the controls are fine but when you are trying to jump from platform to platform Simba will slow down and not be able to jump as high, and this makes sense because in most games when you start to slow down you can't jump as high but the platforms you have to continue to jump on are so stretched out that when Simba slows down it's nearly impossible to jump on them and that pisses the crap out of me! As you play the game more Simba will age into an adult just like the movie, and then the game completely changes from what it was. It turns into a more beat em up focused game, and again the mechanics to this are broken. Adult Simba can now slash, it's an alright move but it takes like 5 hits for each enemy it's ridiculous. There are ten levels in this game and no password system, are they serious they want you to beat it all in one go that's absolutely ridiculous, this is a long game and you have to beat it all in one sitting. Luckily if you go to the options menu and enter B, A, R,R,Y, on it you will be able to access each level, and this is fine but in the 90's who would know this!
The final boss is who you would expect, Scar and again it's broken. The way you beat scar is too throw him off of Priderock and to do this you have to awkwardly position yourself on top of him and throw him off. After you do beat him Simba roars to claim the Pridelands again. That's it no special ending. I get what they were trying to go for here but I hate that that's game, why couldn't they have put some sort of ending that consisted of telling the player something? Sure the animation is cool in the end but it makes the player feel like playing the game wasn't worth anything.
Overall I love Lion King the movie, but I can't say the same thing about the video game, they tried to make a game that looked beautiful and was all about the presentation but forgot to actually put some good gameplay with it too. I would only recommend this game to huge Disney fans because this game is a wreck.