The Lion King III: Timon & Pumbaa

The Lion King III: Timon & Pumbaa
Title screen.
Publisher	Dragon Co.
Developer	TomSoft Studio
Console	Famicom
Date	1995 or 1996
Sound engine	Konami

The Lion King III: Timon & Pumbaa is the first known Dragon Co. release, which is known mainly as a 'coding practice' game for Tommy Xie, Dragon Co.'s lead programmer. The game itself is not only loosely based on The Lion King full-length movie, but also an animated series spinoff, The Lion King's Timon & Pumbaa.

Gameplay

Before starting the game, the player has to choose one of three playable characters: Simba, Timon, or Pumbaa. Simba is balanced overall, but has no projectiles and can only swim for a limited amount of time (however, there's only one water section in the entire game, which is not required for its' completion). Timon has the slowest speed, but he can swim without an oxygen limit and uses tomatoes as his weapon. Pumbaa is heavy to control, can't dive into the water and can't hold on the cliffs, but has the fastest speed which can be used to ram enemies.

The goal of each level is to find the boss (in case of the second stage, two bosses) and beat them to activate the exit to the next level. The only pickups generally available on the stages are stars, for extra points, and hearts, for extra health. Barring a few exceptions, there is generally no checkpoints throughout the levels, and even when there is one, the player's obliged to fight the boss again every time they lose a life. Yet, it's possible to get an extra life every 100,000 points.

Trivia

• There is a couple of obvious references to an episode of The Lion King's Timon & Pumbaa called Boara Boara: the design of straw huts in stage 1 closely resembles the tribe chief's residence from that episode. The tribe chief himself makes an appearance as stage 4's boss.
• This is one of two Dragon Co's NES games to feature a credit roll, the other being Felix the Cat (Dragon Co.)
• Unlike its' follow-up, The Lion King V: Timon & Pumbaa, this game does, oddly enough, feature a pause screen.
• The melody of stage 5's theme would later be reused for The Lion King V: Timon & Pumbaa's title screen. Likewise, that game's stage 5's theme references The Lion King III's title screen music.
• The title screen hack, The Lion King IV, remains undumped. Its' two follow-ups, however, were dumped, one being The Lion King 5: Timon & Pumbaa, and the other being its' alternate version, The Lion King 6.