The Lion King in Kingdom Hearts.

[Elton John]

The story goes that the people at square enix wanted a lk level in the first game, but couldn't due to the animations being tough to to do so they settled on simba being the first summon you get in the game.

With more experience using the ps2 hardware, there was a lk level in kh2 where you played as a lion cub version of sora and teamed up with simba. It also had story elements not in the movies. I hear jonathan taylor thomas reprised his role as young simba for the wildebeast stampede intro to the pridelands level.

Cam Clarke, who was the singing voice of simba in the lion king 2 voiced simba in kh2.

You can also summon simba in the ps2 version of kingdom hearts chain of memories.

Nothing much has been announced for kh3. It is possible that there might be a level based on simbas pride.

Also oddly enough the original design for sora was like a cross between a human and a lion, much more humanlike than lion-like.

[Captain Cupcake]

JTT didn't reprise his role in the game for that opening flashback scene for the world. He was already an adult by then. It was just archival recordings taken from the original sequence. James Earl Jones' dialogue from the film is also reused in the game during another brief flashback.

It's unlikely that Simba's Pride will be utilized for KHIII. Usually the Kingdom Hearts franchise avoids dabbling in the DTV sequels and such, usually building off of their worlds with original ideas than the follow ups. The closest thing to adapting an actual sequel was Jafar's return in KHII, but that was merely playing with the concept of Jafar returning in general(which was a given), and didn't take much unique elements from the Aladdin sequel outside of Iago's role.

Even though it's equally unlikely that The Lion Guard would make an appearance given that Square-Enix doesn't utilize TV series either, it'd be flat out hilarious if it's shoehorned into KHIII just to advertise the series.

[Elton John]

Oops, sorry about that.

And while square doesn't utilize dtv stuff much they do reuse worlds a lot. Especially agrabah and the hercules level.

I can see them using the lion king again in kh3 due to the sheer popularity of the franchise. The only reason why I can think of them not using tlk in most of the spinoff titles is due to much lower budgets and the unique animations needed.

[Captain Cupcake]

It's more to do with the fact that TLK's world wasn't really relevant in most of those handheld installments.

- COM was a retread of KH's levels with a new story taking place in-between KH1 and KH2, and Sora hadn't visited The Pride Lands yet, so there were no memories of that place for him to revisit. Had he been to TLK's world in the original game, it probably would have been included, though. He doesn't transform in COM, both due to budget reasons and not having Donald change him when he visits his memories.
- 358/2 Days couldn't go there for plot reasons, and the time span it takes place in the story is before, during, and after the events of COM, but before KH2.
- RE:COM is a remake of COM, so the same reasons apply.
- Birth by Sleep was a prequel, taking place long before the Lion King cast was even born.
- RE:Coded is another retread of old worlds, working through digitized records of Jimmy's journal.
- Dream Drop Distance primarily focused on new Disney worlds, and two new renditions of unique KH locations from previous installments.

Although, you're right in that they probably wouldn't want to bother with the issue of creation animal-form models, animations and altered gameplay for them. It's not something THAT costly and difficult(after all, Days had a mission mode where the entire Organization, Mickey, and Sora are playable), but given that a lot of these side-games implement multiple characters, giving all of them additional alternate forms would be too much extra work.

[Elton John]

True.

I just really want a big, beautiful savannah to explore in kh3. After playing kh2.5 hd, which is almost as good looking as a native ps3 game I can only imagine how gorgeous it can look on more powerful hardware.

[Captain Cupcake]

It probably would look good if it did return.

I was a little bit disappointed in Square-Enix's work with The Pride Lands in KH2. The cutscene direction was especially awkward, with poor music placement(KH2 in general leaves a lot of awkward silences in many of its scenes compared to the other installments) and an excessive use of the infamous pixel/static face instead of more fully-animated faces. It's astounding how Scar, who had one of the most expressive faces in the original film, didn't have any fully animated model at all. Fortunately, Simba and Nala received better attention.

[Elton John]

As far as visuals go, SE did what they could considering the PS2 was half a decade old during the Japanese release.


Judging by the first trailer of KH3 animation quality won't be an issue. I heard they had to change graphical engines but I have heard good things about the unreal 4 engine when compared to U3. I hear it is better than the one SE was using for previous game development.

[Captain Cupcake]

It really wasn't anything to do with hardware limitations. As I mentioned before, Simba and Nala received better treatment during a number of cutscenes, and creating a few additional fully animated models isn't really some sort of technological hurdle.

It's more to do with budgetary limitations and/or time constraints preventing additional work on some of the details, as full character animation is a lot of work. KH2 was a hefty game, so they were going to have to cut a few corners. Even some content had to be omitted due to space issues(those omissions would later be added with the other new content added in the 2007 Final Mix+ release after they managed to compress a few things), which goes to show how much work they had to focus their time and money on. The Lion King world's presentation just happened to take more of a hit in that regard.

[DGFone]

I always wondered why Donald and Goofy needed alternate forms, considering that they were already animals. If anything, their PL forms were even less natural than their original forms, at least to me. But seriously: Goofy as a dog's head in a turtle body? Keep him all dog please. Or if he must be changed, there is a certain animal known as the African Wild Dog...

On the more amusing side, over spring break, I got to play the PL levels when I visited my sister. I discovered that using the dash ability and continuously turning causes Sora do perform an endless power slide. It was rather amusing to find, to say the least.

[SimbasGuard]

Donald and Goofy needed alternate forms in The Pride Lands, because despite being animals they are too humanoid to fit into a world without humans.

Goofy was made a turtle, due to him having a shield as his weapon of choice. Turtles are know for there protective shells.

I really like the Gamera-Esque wasGoofygot around in The Pride Lands.