It’s fascinating to play these games as an adult and also with the benefit of a rewind button. If I can take you back to the early 90s when these games were released, the way games had longevity was through difficult. When arcade games were difficult, it was a financial transaction. You pump in quarters to keep playing. But when home console games were difficult, it’s so that parents wouldn’t feel ripped off while game developers inflicted sadistic gameplay on kids. If you were a tenacious child, then coming home after school every day to see if you could get past the “Cave of Wonders” or “I Can’t Wait to Be King” was how games worked. You would get destroyed again and again with only a limited numbers of lives and continues and checkpoints. The underlying message for kids (if these games have a message): be perfect or die.

Playing them as an adult, it speaks volumes that even with a rewind button to speed things along, these games are still punishingly difficult. Some if it is because of poor design like weak object detection (like getting hit when you weren’t touched by an enemy) or platforming that doesn’t reach the gold standard set by the Mario games. But ultimately, with Aladdin and The Lion King, you have two pretty typical games of the era: they were tie-ins, they were brutally difficult, and, credit where it’s due, they’re beautifully animated for their era. Carrying that Disney license ensured that the games didn’t look bad even if their gameplay felt designed to upset and anger children.

That’s the weirdest thing about the way these games play. As an adult, I would never want my kid to play a game like this. It’s fine for me with the nostalgia and the rewind button and all that. But there’s really nothing rewarding happening here. Sure, the Mario games have their level of difficulty, but what’s always made the Mario games stand apart is that they feel, on some level, fair. Even as a kid, you know that if you missed the jump or got struck by an enemy, it was kind of on you. And especially once you reach Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World, the games offer ways to be more forgiving without completely nerfing the experience.

Aladdin and especially The Lion King really hate the player. They almost feel like a cruel joke played on every child who loved the movies and then gets introduced to some of the most punishing levels the designers were able to concoct. And again, I get the business decision: Parents are the ones paying for these games and a game that can be beaten in a weekend makes for unhappy parents. But look at the puzzling element added to The Lion King and tell me that’s a game for a child. I’m a grown-ass man and I was repeatedly checking YouTube to figure out how to advance (I had less of a problem with that on Aladdin, although the boss fights still gave me trouble).

The Disney Classic Games collection is a funny little nostalgia box that really leans hard into “nostalgia” because any realistic recollection of these games has to acknowledge their unforgiving difficulty. With the rewind button frequently in use (although it can cause the game to glitch something awful by basically losing control of your character), the games are manageable, but they’d probably only be considered “fun” by masochists.

Full Review + Trophy Review and Tips Below

This collection should have been 5 stars, it had every right to be 5 full beautiful green GG stars. BUT they left out the SNES version of Aladdin and that is an automatic deduction in the quality of this collection. For a game that does EVERYTHING else right, this is a massive gaping hole in the quality of the collection. Now, it may not be entirely their fault and there could have been issues with the licencing of the game, but to not have it ... it ... well you get it.

Outside of that, these are two games that are pivotal to my childhood gaming and I love them. They have all the features you would come to expect. This includes save states and rewinds which make the games much easier to complete in 2019 than they were in the 90's but no less fun.

Trophies
Difficulty: 1/10
Time: 45 Minutes
Trophy Guide: Recommended (Follow along with a YouTube video)
Trophy List Score: 6/10

The fact that you can use cheat codes to beat each level, regardless of the difficulty, makes this a piece of cake. Your best bet is to find a YouTube video with a 30 minute run of the platinum and just follow along.

Loved these games as a kid but could never get past the first couple levels. The animation and music give off incredible vibes here, but there are just so many cheap deaths in this game that the actual game part hampers the experience.

Finished Aladdin with ample use of rewind when I decided the game was being too cheap.

Abandoned The Lion King which was just too cheap even with rewind for me to care enough to keep going.

This double pack of two Disney titles from the past is certainly a real ol' mixed bag indeed.

On the one side you have Aladdin which still manages to hold up as a pretty good platformer even with some dated shortcomings but on the other side you have The Lion King which is a classic film but a pretty bloody annoying game that quite honestly is hard to go back to.

The presentation of this collection is super duper bare bones but you get some cool behind the scenes videos including new content about the making of the Aladdin game (bit weird they didn't do any new ones for the Lion King though).

You even get the Game Boy games as a bonus... the only problem is they fucking suck... badly.

The thing that makes this collection (or rather this release) obsolete though is that they've released an updated version that not only includes more versions of Aladdin including Capcom's SNES title but wouldn't ya know it? They've even thrown in The Jungle Book as a Brucie bonus too.

So if you're looking to get this collection of some ol' Disney titles, then I'd probably skip this original version and go with that release. This isn't too bad of a collection but it's let down by a few aspects.... and maybe The Lion King game when it's being bloody annoying.

Only played The Lion King. A very difficult game which would be even worse without the rewind feature. I am sorry to any kids who got this back then.

I did have a lot of fun slapping enemies with my claws and rewinding funny bits though.

Cool!