The Lion King (Game Boy)

The Lion King
Developer: Dark Technologies Publisher: Virgin Interactive Platform: Game Boy Released in US: April 1995 Released in EU: August 12, 1994 This game has unused areas. This game has a hidden developer message. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused music. This game has unused text. This game has a hidden level select.

The Game Boy version of The Lion King is essentially a stripped-down port of the 16-bit versions with shakier controls, a missing level, and an inexplicably mangled rendition of "Just Can't Wait to be King". Much infamously, this version would later be ported to the NES in a severely rushed state, with half the levels inexplicably missing from that port.

Unused Text

Present at 0x43EE is a snippet from Luke 18:16, which also made its way into the NES version.

Suffer little children to come unto me

Unused Graphics

There are leftover graphics data for a removed debug stage, although it's possible they were used to display collision and such during development. They are repeated a couple of times near the end of the ROM. Similar graphics can be found in the NES version of this game, however a little bit altered.

(Source: cah4e3)

Level Select

Pause the game and press B, A, A, B, A, A to skip to the next level.

Unused Music

Almost a full third of the songs in the game are unused. None of these tracks are in the NES port.

Track #8 is a happy little fanfare that doesn't seem to be used in any of the other versions of the game.

Track #10 is the theme used for the "Simba's Exile" stage in the 16-bit versions of the game. Here, this stage uses "Under the Stars" as background music (which it shares with "Simba's Destiny"), a rather strange choice.

Track #12 is the song used for the Timon & Pumbaa's Bug Patrol minigame in other versions. In the Game Boy version, this minigame uses the same background music as whatever stage the player was last in.

Track #13 is Death Tag from other versions of the game. Here, dying or even getting a Game Over doesn't change the background music at all.

Track #14 is King Tag from the Genesis version of the game... which went unused there too!

Unused Level

The missing level, "Be Prepared", can be accessed by changing the level value to 07. It uses the name "Jungle Caverns", which is the same name seen in early prototypes of the game. Unfortunately, only the text for the title remains. The level itself is blank with a few garbage tiles, and Simba will die instantly upon arrival. The music that plays is the Hyena Lairs song.