I wondered about the timing for this game, since the first
Lion King movie was at least 4-5 years ago, but
Simba's Mighty Adventure is actually a mix of both movies. Almost everybody knows the original Lion King, but I never saw
Simba's Pride, the second movie. Lion King was about Simba becoming the leader of his pride and growing up to learn the lessons of life, love and honor.
Simba's Pride starts with Simba as a grown-up lion. After his daughter falls in love with a lion from another pride, Simba is caught up in a power struggle with the Outlander queen, Zira. Playing as Simba, each level presents different challenges related to the storyline from the movies and both Zira and Scar appear as bosses.
There really isn't anything in Simba's Mighty Adventure that shouldn't make for good Platforming action. All the story elements are followed for each level, so anything happening in the movie cut-scene sets the activity for the next level. Water, fire and falling rocks all come into play along with tons of enemies and obstacles or tricky jumps. The really disappointing part was when I finished the 'Lion King' portion of the game and thought, 'Great, now for a new bunch of levels from the next movie.' Basically, every level that played out the events in Lion King gets repeated for Simba's Pride! Sure, instead of running through jungle, Simba runs through fiery plains. Sure, instead of Scar throwing rocks at him, Zira rolls logs at him, but why did I feel like I played the whole game twice? And I'm not even kidding when I say that from the first cut-scene to the ending credits, this game only took 90 minutes to beat on the standard difficulty. Somehow, unless this game is intended for seriously entry-level gamers, I don't believe most kids will find any challenge here. The action is a mix of behind-the-back 3D with a fixed camera and 2.5D or running levels where Simba is chased through a canyon and has to avoid obstacles. In each level, a certain number of Coin power-ups have to be grabbed before playing the next level. Other items are Gourds that Simba can cash in to play special mini games and the letters S-I-M-B-A, used to earn movies you can watch later after completing any level. Some of the mini-games are fun, but not enough to save the otherwise boring gameplay.