Disney is a strange company that usually keeps its licenses close to its heart and doesn’t like people fiddling around with them. If you need an example of this, go read the tedious start to Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios, who have had, at times, a rough relationship over how IP is treated. Most of the time, it’s with a fine-toothed comb. Sony Pictures struggles at times with keeping fan-accurate superheroes, while Marvel Studios likes going through its IP with fans in mind. Eros is baffling, but I’m sure it will work out.
Anyway, what usually comes out of such laser-focused care when it comes to Disney-owned IP? Typically, good things come out of it. For example, did you enjoy Spider-Man: No Way Home? Credit Marvel, while crediting Disney for forming Marvel to make Marvel marvelous. When you’re building a good product, you’re building for the long haul and not the short stint. You want people to remember how good the said product was, so you don’t want to ruin it (or you want to give it the best chance for not being ruined).
While this review isn’t about a product that is making close to $2 billion at the box office, I’m always amazed that the same love and care that was extended to Disney’s films and television shows was extended in the 90s to movie-to-game translations (sometimes), which brings us to today’s review of Disney Classic Games Collection featuring The Jungle Book, Aladdin, and The Lion King. It’s a simple revisit to some 16-bit classics that turns out to be a lot more than I assumed it would be.
Let’s get right into it.
The Jungle Book
You’re going to find repeating mechanics throughout this review. I don’t know how many years apart these games were made, but the initial mechanic blueprint must have been passed around through Disney Interactive’s development team and tweaked a bit. I don’t know if it was just the sign of the times for platformers, but gosh there are a lot of repeating mechanics throughout the trio in this collection.
Anyway, The Jungle Book was the first game in this collection that I loaded up. What I found remarkable about this is that Mogley is as fast as Sonic the Hedgehog and is built to swing, jump, bounce on enemies, and essentially speed his way through levels as one would expect someone running for their lives from wild creatures should do. The game is incredibly simple in its control demands, as you have that ‘Mario Bounce’ going on with enemies and you’re mostly just trying to avoid being hit. It’s nothing over-the-top difficult and nothing new for that era. In fact, it was those mechanics that were the driving point of most 16-bit platformers.
What’s the hitch in this giddy-up? Well, the game throws everything and the kitchen sink at you from the start to the finish. This doesn’t mean that you can’t get through levels, but it’s going to be Dark Souls-esque when it comes to enemies placed in cheating spots. It’s not The Lion King sorta difficulty (see what’s coming up?), but it’s difficult. You’re going to find that a common theme as well throughout this review. The one saving grace to the difficulty is the ability to snapshot your saves, much like what you would find in a typical PC game, especially during that era. Thank you, Digital Eclipse for implementing that feature. It’s a Godsend.
As The Jungle Book ranks out of the three games included on this disc, it’s a firm number two. Fun action, quick gameplay, frustrating as heck.
Aladdin
Great music. Seriously, great music. The film and the game, great music. Starting on that positive note, the gameplay is a slowed-down version of The Jungle Book, where there are fewer enemies, less cheaty enemy placements, and just a lot of fun level design to grab and swing from while you’re platforming through stages. It’s like watching the early design of future Assassin’s Creed games. Between all three of these games, this is the one I revisited the most and had a good time with, and I can’t believe that I ignored it growing up in the 90s. Movie licenses, am I right?
Anyway, Aladdin provides some incredible level design for a simple game and goes with the typical platforming mechanics of jump, run, and bounce off the heads of enemies. The added throwing of a finite number of tomatoes is in the mix as well and can be used with a clever strategy to take out, or at least delay some well-placed enemies that are impeding your progression.
On the boss side of the equation, you get a variety of difficulties in that arena. The first boss is a gent swinging a sword. He has a pattern that requires you to wait for him to swing, then you jump on his head. The bosses during this era of gaming went this route all the time. Not very Dark Souls at all.
My favorite part of Aladdin is how the levels are designed. They are just fun to traverse and more fun than they should be for a 16-bit movie license game. You swing on things, you grab ledges, and you can propel yourself towards enemies. It’s a blast to interact with those level designs. They make the game just so much more fun.
Anyway, Aladdin is the best of the bunch, though I know there are some differing opinions about the last game.
The Lion King
My wife loved this game. She owned this game on the Genesis and made The Lion King her first game when she bought that system. She kept the game and system forever. What’s funny is that when I first started dating her in college, I knew I was with the right person because I saw she had a Genesis and was a gamer. For that, I thank you, The Lion King, and will always be in debt to you for making me realize Kelly was the one.
Mushiness aside, I hated playing this game.
The Lion King had soooooo many enemies that were strategically placed to eliminate you causing you to fail repeatedly. The gameplay was so incredibly difficult to get through. It was like playing a lite version of Super Mario Lost Levels, where bitter programmers were strategically placing death traps for you to fall into with every jump. I know the game has some charm beyond the above love story, but it was frustrating as could be trying to enjoy it.
Graphically, it was a gorgeous game, though. It hit all the right marks with some superb animation, even when the enemies kill you a bajillion times, you must appreciate the animation they bring to the game. The cutscenes are great, the music really drives home the film’s essence, and the voiceovers included are just something special for a mid-90s 16-bit era. Who knew a cartridge could hold actors’ voices? Not me. Not anyone.
I’m sure someone could speed-run this thing to make it cool again, but as it stands it is the most beautiful of the bunch and the hardest of the three. It’s not unplayable, it’s just not a casual experience I would wish on anyone. My wife was a badass at this game, though, which just makes her super cool in my book.
Special features
While I completely read every press release that gets sent my way (lie), I just assumed that this was a simple collection of three 16-bit classics, much like the 8-bit classic collection of Duck Tales / Chip ‘n Dales Rescue Rangers, but I was wrong. This collection includes special features on how the games were made, as well as art from concept to reality. Each game comes with this so that there is more than just gaming waiting for you. Quite frankly, the good folks at Digital Eclipse, who put this together, did a fantastic job of including more than just a retread of classic 16-bit games. They made sure you got every single drop of history and some bonus games.
That’s right, bonus games.
Beyond the initial games and special features, you also get the Gameboy versions of each title. While the Gameboy versions aren’t the best in the world, because you had two buttons to work with at the time and limited space, it’s still a nice salt sprinkle on the overall meal that you get the handheld companions with the 16-bit juggernauts. That was quite a surprise, and a welcomed one. To cap all this content off, you also get the ability to watch a complete playthrough of each game. I wish more games would include this feature.
The entire package of special features and both sets of games is only $29.99 (physical copy price), which is fascinating because that’s a great price point for this set. You would probably pay $7 apiece for each game at a secondhand seller, that’s not including the case, and you wouldn’t get the special features with it. That’s a deal. Consider that you would have to own the consoles ($29+) and your adult hands would absolutely hate you for the experience (those controllers are tiny). This release is a complete steal for the amount of content you get from it.
All above said, this game collection has a lot built into it beyond simple translations of old games.
Conclusion
Digital Eclipse and publisher Nighthawk Interactive did a fantastic job with bringing three Disney 16-bit classics back to the current generation of gaming and offered up additional content to justify the reasonable price tag. One can only hope that they can get ahold of more Disney-owned gaming content *cough cough* LUCASARTS *ahem* and bring it back to life. Until such a time, they did a heckuva job with the Disney Classic Games Collection. While not perfect, it’s still a worthwhile trip down memory lane.
