NES PAL Exclusives: DISNEY'S THE LION KING (Nintendo Entertainment System Review)

[@fictionalmediabully9830]

'The Lion King' for the NES, like most bewildering software, is a game that has me interested in getting into contact with any of the developers someday. A game designer once taught me that no one wants to make a bad product, and the results for such could be due to misguided development or publisher interference. After playing this turd of a cartridge, I can think of how this came out the way it did. The development team, Dark Technologies, were initially contracted to make a Game Boy port of the 16-bit versions, and someone at Virgin decided they could handle porting that to the NES since the Game Boy is basically a portable NES. All that had to be done was the bare minimum; convert the graphics, sound, and content, and call it a day. Had they got all the Game Boy levels in there, it would still be rubbish but perhaps not child-upsetting rubbish. Eventually, someone at Virgin thought a NES version wouldn't be profitable due to the machine's age, thus spending extra time and money would be a waste, so they forced the devs to finish what was already there, and ship it out for the easily suckered consumers. The end result is a cynical cash grab that insults both the target consumer and the machine's legacy. It definitely should not have been the last licensed game on the NES, and shame on Nintendo and Virgin for the lack of quality control. I don't know how much this version cost to buy but NES games normally reached £50 in the UK, so it would have been a massive rip-off if that was the asking price. What a corporate release if I've ever seen one. Enjoyable video.

[@BigOleWords]

That’s awesome info, thanks for that!

[@RetroKingPin]

It's like taking your drivers test when all one of your wheels randomly turns sideways every ten seconds! I had a good chuckle out of that one. Thanks for the review Big Ole Words!

[@BigOleWords]

Haha thanks!

[@raphaelturtle4146]

I saw in a few videos you mention this Gameboy to NES port theory. Nice catch. I think you're absolutely right. I always thought there was something off with these games but could never really put my finger on it. I mean, I've seen bad NES games before - these just looked like the epitome of that. I thought this was what passed for a game in Pal territories. Like they had lower standards or whatever. I honestly thought some just might have been fan games or hacks or something (I came across them mostly through emulation). But, you're right, it's absolutely they ported a gameboy game. So weird...

[@GGYTTHEYT]

Your channel is awesome, im 16 but my dad has a Mattel nes and it's pal(I'm from Australia) and these vids make me feel a little bit better that my nes is a pal

[@BigOleWords]

Hey thanks, and that’s awesome! Most of the PAL titles are not as awful as this one!

[@GGYTTHEYT]

@@BigOleWords yeah, I have this game on nes called puzznic, have you heard of it in America?

[@BigOleWords]

@@GGYTTHEYT Yes I have: kzbin.info/www/bejne/an-Ukn6Zhriqe6M

[@BushFan647]

2:22 yes actually, the sega master system and sega game gear were basically the same hardware wise, so (especially in the later years and in the European/brazil market) many games were ported to/made semi concurrently with master system from game gear, often to mixed results sonic chaos seems to have been made alongside the gg version (although the ms version was europe exclusive) and sonic blast (which was already a bad game) was ported to ms for the brazilian market (it was still bad)

[@pepijn23]

As a Dutch/PAL nes collector. Finding certain NES games you really want is a nightmare. Balloon fight here goes for around 60 euros and Lion King is sometimes lower than 7.50 euros online.

[@BigOleWords]

Yeah it’s crazy. On of my favorite games is Heavy Shreddin’ which is super common here, but the PAL version “Snowboard Challenge” is one of the rarest!

[@Mystemo]

I never knew that the Game Boy version had the levels that are missing from the NES version, I'll have to check that out. This is definitely one of those times where Sega really did what Nintendidn't though, the Game Gear/Master System versions of this game are insanely impressive for 8-bit systems.

[@BigOleWords]

Y know I don’t think I’ve tried either of those versions of Lion King, just the Nintendo ones!

[@MidnightMovieMavenn]

The problem with this game playing is the screen resolution in pal region. In a case like this, you would to have to simply adjust the vertical hold.this was an option on many tvs before cable became a mainstay, I used to have tvs that would do this same seizure glitch when you twisted the vertical hold knob. The game is working correctly however. I've never looked into adjusting it in the modern era

[@Ruudos]

Fact: the back of the box says that the game has 10 levels. BTW, there's also a French variant (Le Roi Lion).

[@BigOleWords]

Lies! And neat! It seems like they’re all in English, just with their respective language on the cover art.

I had Lion King for the famiclone (small yellow cartridge), and that wasn't looking this putrid, also there were 5 levels (no elephant cemetery nor stampede), the later 2 with adult Simba, so I had no idea that this version also exists. The second level was hard, but not impossible like in the SNES/Genesis/PC versions. I wonder what version could that be (bootleg, homebrew, etc)

[@BigOleWords]

Hmmm I'm not sure! I'm working on the PAL exclusive Aladdin review right now and there's a totally different version of Aladdin that I think only came out on bootlegs, so maybe there's an alternate Lion King as well.

@@BigOleWords Indeed, I just found out that there is a pirated Aladdin which looks great compared to the official, similar to the Lion King's case, which was developed by Super Game kzbin.info/www/bejne/rZ7LgWl3eM5_nrM&ab_channel=GeminiNES

[@ThePreciseClimber]

2:00 At first I thought bootleggers used this first screen in the Diamond 9999999-in-1 cartridge but no! The Diamond 9999999-in-1 menu screen actually looks BETTER than the official NES game. Go figure. And it also featured 8bit Can You Feel the Love Tonight.

[@BigOleWords]

Hahaha that’s amazing

[@ShawnRaz87]

So basically the reason why all these PAL exclusive master system games exist is they were all released after corresponding Genesis versions for most of the titles. The Genesis was already out we would get a game on it and SNES the current gen 4th gen systems. And then some of these games would also get a master system and NES release but only in Europe I believe this was just due to economic stuff at the time and not many people in those regions adopting the newer systems as early as the US and Japan did they were happy in Europe to sit there with their older system so an effort to expand their sales they made versions of these games for their last gen system but only in PAL here in North America there was a larger percentage of the market that had adopted the current Jen hardware and since they would rather sell it on the current gen then the old gen they just didn't bother releasing the last gen version here

[@gingerhippygaming7962]

I got this game from a game shop boxed sadly didn't work so took it back

[@BigOleWords]

As an American, it's just wild to me that you can easily purchase this game, let alone return it at will!

[@gingerhippygaming7962]

Aladdin is very expensive in the UK

[@BigOleWords]

And somehow even worse than Lion King

[@Yungbeck]

I could never manage those giraffe jumps man

[@BigOleWords]

They’re no joke

[@MockingjayYT]

Wow, had no idea there was a pal Lion King. Very interesting. (Also, I love Castle Quest on NES, hehe)

[@BigOleWords]

Castle quest is pretty great and one Ill probably get to at some point. Istill can’t figure out where to go though…

[@MockingjayYT]

@@BigOleWords me neither, I usually run out of keys, I need to give that one another try.

[@BigOleWords]

@@MockingjayYT Yeah exactly!

[@LucianTheWorldGamer]

I love this version of the Lion King, for the curio that it is! Of course the SNES version is better, but I also love to see these "demakes", great vid!

[@BigOleWords]

I too love the mid generation titles that make it onto the new and old systems. It’s kinda cool to see how the technical abilities of each console force the developers to adapt. Most of them are like Lion King here, but occasionally they’re like Sonic for Master System or Twilight Princess for Game Cube.

[@eugeneketaminekrebs3403]

The company that made this game lasted 9 more years after releasing it...(VGPM is the source(Not the safest).)

[@BigOleWords]

Really?!? There is no God!!!

[@eugeneketaminekrebs3403]

@@BigOleWords Yeah. They were founded in 1988.

[@flamespear86]

This is sad considering how good Disney Interactive was back then and how good the SNES/Genesis version of the game was.

[@BigOleWords]

Yeah not sure why they even bothered.

[@JohnDoe-wq5eu]

I do think it's funny that even the game boy version was more complete than this version like what the hell?! They really did not care.

[@BigOleWords]

Yeah, zero effort port for sure.

[@oldschoolgamesstories]

I can’t believe anyone thought it was a good idea to release this to the public. They should be ashamed!

[@BigOleWords]

I know! I'd kind of love to talk to one of the programmers though, get their thoughts on the meetings that led to this bizarre port.

[@RonManGaming]

Woof! Yeah this looks like hot garbage. I actually have a reproduction cart of this - a friend just gave it to me; I've never even put it in my NES. Great video, brother!

[@BigOleWords]

You must’ve known instinctually, at some deep primal level, how terrible Lion King was. It’s abysmal.

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

I didn't even know this awful official version existed until recently, as kids we had a famiclone cart that was far better than this, you can find videos of that on youtube and much like the SNES to NES Aladdin downport(also had that as a kid, still have the cart) the unofficial Lion King port was far superior than this mess.

[@julesgamergourmand]

The game is court but it is fun.

[@GenerationPixel]

If you want we can work on a time machine, go back, and ensure the North American consumers get these gems? No? 🤣

[@BigOleWords]

Gah, the horror! Beauty and the Beast is at least it’s own terrible game but Aladdin? Woof.

[@bananonymouslastname5693]

"...I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free, and I won't forget the men who died..." Nothing like awful PAL games to stir up a latent sense of nationalism.

[@BigOleWords]

Hahahahaha they gave their lives to rid us of the tyranny of terrible Disney games.

[@Faraway.G]

Baaaad port

[@BigOleWords]

Yeeeeesss it is!

[@jeffcox6539]

This is one game the Chinese bootleggers actually did better. Want a laugh try playing that version. They added death animations when you lose.

[@BigOleWords]

Neat! I’ve never played it but it sounds cool :)

[@samueldecelles6646]

The Super Game is much better that this one

[@BigOleWords]

10,000 times better!