The Lion King

The lion's roar echoes across the savanna and you realize for the first time just how merciless a childishly cute-looking game can be. The Lion King on the Super Nintendo went down in history not only as a handsome adaptation of the famous animated film, but above all as a symbol of almost inhuman difficulty.

The game is a platformer in which you move through scenes from the film while growing up alongside the main hero. In the fur of a little lion cub you first jump, roll over enemies and let out a roar that scares animals away, while later, as a grown lion, you gain strength, claws and harder-hitting attacks. The game thus cleverly ties the character's transformation to the development of gameplay abilities and tries to mirror the dramatic arc of the film level by level.

Visually The Lion King benefited from above-standard animation and rich colors, thanks to which the game looked like a film brought to life on screen. The backgrounds, the fluid movement of the characters and the film-inspired soundtrack turned playing into an audiovisual experience that felt exceptionally striking in the mid-1990s and appealed to players across age groups.

The game became a legend, however, because of its notorious difficulty. The very second level, in which you have to precisely time jumps across swinging monkeys, etched itself into the memory of an entire generation as the point where a great many players ran aground. Among fans it is said that the difficulty was deliberately cranked up, among other reasons so the game could not be beaten on a single rental — which was a real commercial consideration for publishers at the time.

Today The Lion King is a reminder of an era when platformers pulled no punches and when finishing a game was a genuine badge of honor. Beneath the pretty surface lies a hard test of patience and precision that will challenge even seasoned players. For nostalgics and challenge-hunters alike it is a title that is not forgotten, whether for its beauty or for the sleepless evenings at that cursed second level.

Why play: A gorgeously animated platformer with legendary difficulty that became a legend. Dive in if you love both nostalgia and a challenge that gives nothing away for free.