Maker - Unknown   Catalogue No. - SZ006

Type - Platform Action

Welcome to the world of Chinese originals or could it be Taiwanese originals?  Either way The Lion King II is an unofficial game made in the far east for the Mega Drive.  Normally these so called Chinese originals are just sprite hacks of existing games but every now and then they actually make a game from scratch and that's what we have here.  The game starts off with Mufasa and Simba running down a road in 3D.  This is very well animated and easily worthy of an official game.  The next scene has them standing on a mountain stop as the camera zooms in followed by a 3D'ish Lion King II logo rocking backwards and forwards.

For some strange reason EVERY level in the game is set in China !  The game is your typical platform affair collecting stars with the odd power up here and there that changes Simba in to Mufasa!  Over all it's actually a pretty decent game.  There are a few poorly laid out platforms within the game however which stop you progressing any further but in that case it's always possible to actually jump through a wall!!  I have no idea if this was some poor attempt at a secret passage or just sloppy programming.  Either way, it doesn't spoil the fun that much.

All background and enemy art seems to be original and pretty well done if I may say so while the sprites for Mufasa and Simba are ripped from the Virgin Lion King game.  The music on the other hand is a mix bag.  The box states that the game features all the tunes from the animation but we all know that you should never believe anything you read on a Chinese original game box.  The music s all originally composed for this game which while it may not be great stuff I am impressed that the programmers actually made the effort to create original tunes.

So, is The Lion King II actually worth owning?  Hmm, if platformers are your thing then yes.  The only problem is that you can't lose energy in this game.  There are lumps of meat for you to pick up as energy but collecting them is pointless since your energy meter never seems to go down.  Plus if you die your lives don't decrease either, hahaha.

The cartridge looks just like a standard Japanese Mega Drive cartridge but the insides are completely different.  The game is burned on to two bubble chips which are soldered on to a custom made PCB along with a custom made holder.  Official Mega Drive cartridges have the data stored on to normal chips as you can see from the shots below.

These are the Chinese unofficial Lion King 2 cartridge scans.  Notice that there is a bubble chip on both sides of the cartridge.

As you can see the official Mega Drive cartridges use normal chips.  This actual cartridge also features a battery back up for saving game data such as high scores or a place in a RPG.  The main game data is stored on the biggest chip.  You'll also notice that on official cartridges there are no chips on the back side of the PCB board.