Disney Classic Games Collection: Aladdin, The Jungle Book, and The Lion King PlayStation 5 Review

Back in the SNES and SEGA Genesis days, Disney had a wide array of popular games based on the company's various IPs. Disney Classic Games Collection is a re-release of Virgin Interactive and Capcom's Aladdin, The Jungle Book, and The Lion King with updated features and additional content showing off each game's development and concepts. It's a brilliant collection that brings these classic titles to modern audiences but also keeps the issues that plagued the original games. Regardless, Disney Classic Games Collection is the best way to experience these fantastic games.

Disney Classic Games contains 3 titles: Disney's The Lion King, Disney's The Jungle Book, and both SNES and SEGA Genesis versions of Disney's Aladdin. The main menu to select either of these titles is wonderfully animated with so much visual flare. Each game features 1 iconic scene from the films and 1 track of the game's soundtrack when a selection is highlighted. Once selected you can choose to play the game, check out the game's museum which includes an array of concept art and developer diaries or listen to the game's soundtrack. It's a lot of great content that showcases how much effort went into creating these titles and how the developers captured the original film's art into these games.

Once you pick a game you can choose to play the title or watch an entire playthrough of the game. The "watch" option showcases a professional walkthrough that can be rewound, paused, or fast-forwarded at any time. Impressively you can choose to play at any moment during the walkthrough. Each game also includes an option to save at any time and rewind the game during active playthroughs. By hitting the L1 button you'll rewind the action and you can start playing by letting go of the button instantly.

As for the games, they're exactly like the originals in terms of gameplay but with better technical quality. The developers improved the frame rate and added some screen options. This includes filters to replicate retro monitors and TVs, the option for a border, and screen options. This isn't true wide or full screen but instead stretches the retro visuals as these games were not designed with this in mind. The developers did try and for the most part, it works in creating the illusion of full or widescreen.

Many are aware that 2 versions of Disney's Aladdin were made by 2 different companies, the SNES was made by Capcom and the SEGA Genesis version was made by Virgin Interactive. You can play both versions of these games in this package but the Genesis version is widely considered the better option. Regardless, it's great they included both versions.

The developers went the extra mile and even included the handheld versions of each of these games. As with the core games, you can watch an entire walkthrough, start playing at any time, save your progress, and rewind the gameplay at any time. They even included the same screen options which is a welcomed addition.

Each title has aged quite well, offering a decent array of platforming challenges, exception visuals, and entertaining boss fights. However, the developers didn't modernize the gameplay systems that frustrated lots of gamers. These are not easy games and some of that comes from slight lag with The Lion King, large hitboxes of enemies in Aladdin, or the bullet sponge bosses of The Jungle Book. The argument can be made that maintaining all the original faults preserves the original concepts and that's a valid argument. The developers did include saving and the ability to rewind actions so you do have a large safety net that bypasses many of the issues with each games' difficulty. Unfortunately, there's only 1 save slot but it's not much of an issue since you can just "Watch" a walkthrough and restart from any point you choose.

Disney Classic Games: Aladdin, The Jungle Book, and The Lion King is a very impressive package that not only bundles these classic titles and goes beyond that. Along with all the added features such as saving, rewinding, and professional walkthroughs you get concept art, developer diaries, and each game's entire soundtrack. Along with the handheld versions of each of these games. The amount of care that went into re-releasing these games is amazing and I hope that they do the same for all the Disney classic games. Disney Classic Games is a brilliant re-release of Aladdin, The Jungle Book, and The Lion King and the best way to experience these games.

Review Copy Provided
 

Adam Siddiqui,
Managing Editor, NoobFeed