Platinum Trophy #15: Disney Classic Games: Aladdin and The Lion King
Date Earned: 17th October 2019
Dopamine Index:
I was thrilled when Disney Classic Games: Aladdin and The Lion King was announced. This pair of games compiled and re-released felt specifically targeted towards me in a way no other retro collection really has before or since.
I really cut my teeth on video games with the SEGA Mega Drive, a console you could find in my old home’s living room. It was a family machine; we would all enjoy using it from time to time, though I’d wager none more so than me.
We didn’t have an enormous library of games, and would often rent them from a local shop that’s sadly no longer around.
It was called Kolorama, and there was a big Sonic the Hedgehog painted on the wall outside. It was quite small but had a lot of stuff in it. There was a guard dog behind the counter I always wanted to pat but was told I couldn’t. There were sweet treats like Kit Kats and Panda Pops to tempt you on your way out. I really loved it in there.
We’d peruse the many games it had to offer, but most of the time we’d come back to a select few favourites. Two of those were Aladdin and The Lion King.
I know it mostly boils down to nostalgia, but I still have a huge fondness for this pair of Mega Drive titles. The animation, pixel art, music — it’s all so evocative of the films, which were also favourites in our household, but the games hold their own energy and mood that separates them from the source material.
It’s hard to explain. Basically, I really like this pair of Disney platformers, despite their flaws. They just bring me so much joy.
Sometimes the music — not from the films, from the games — will just pop into my head. It might be Aladdin’s desert level, or the music from The Lion King’s stage Simba’s Exile.
I don’t even hate the monkey puzzle in Can’t Wait to Be King — in fact, I have that and the ostrich sequences pretty much memorised. That’s a weird phrase.
Having played them so much when I was younger, it really struck me when review code came in for this retro package how strange and wonderful and unique my job is.
Decades after playing these games countless times alongside my sisters, I now had to play them for work, assessing them from a critical viewpoint. It was such a strange headspace to be in.
I remember being struck by a similar feeling when I platinumed the collection. It isn’t particularly difficult to do (partly thanks to the rewind function), but again, it was a surreal moment to be playing these classics on a modern system and earning Trophies for doing so.
The whole experience felt like an odd full circle moment, where I was replaying some absolute childhood favourites in an entirely different context. Not just the fact I’m revisiting them as an adult, but doing so as a critic, and as a writer. This is my job now.
I suppose there’s now another layer on top of all that, because now I’m writing a retrospective about getting the platinum Trophy for a game I reviewed that I also played a lot when I was a kid. And now I want to play them again just for kicks.
Cheers, Disney Classic Games: Aladdin and The Lion King.
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