The Jungle Book (NES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete

A playthrough of Virgin's 1994 license-based platformer for the NES, Walt Disney's The Jungle Book.

Based on the 1967 Disney film that was in turn based on the 19th century Rudyard Kipling novel, this late-gen NES action game has Mowgli making his way back to human civilization after being raised by the animals of the jungle.

The between-stage cutscenes loosely follow the plot of the film, but for the most part, the gameplay feels Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure mixed with the collect-a-thon structure that was so prevalent at the time.

Most of the stages are wide-open areas in which you have to search for diamonds as you collect weapons to deal with the animals that regularly attack. You'll bounce off of catapults, swing through vines, and ride on elephants as you make your way toward Shere Khan for the final battle.

It actually feels a lot like Ocean's Dennis the Menace game, the biggest difference being that The Jungle Book isn't trash.

Though a massive step down from the incredible presentation of the SNES version, the graphics and sound are fantastic for an NES game. Mowgli's animation is fluid, the colors are vivid, there's little in the way of slowdown and sprite-flicker, and the soundtrack reprises the tunes from the film in a bouncy, fun way with its Commodore 64-style arpeggios. Items and enemies sometimes blend into the backdrops a bit too well, but overall, there's a lot to love in what they did here.

(Apologies for the short bit where the music is missing. Apparently some bean-counter thought that an 8-bit rendition of Bear Necessities posed too big of a threat to their bottomline, so I had to mute that spot in order avoid a copyright flag.)

The game play is just about as good, too - it feels more like a 16-bit game than an 8-bit one. Though the controls are a bit tricky, Mowgli's movement feels well-grounded. The physics feel good and it's usually pretty easy to make precise landings from long jumps. Enemy attack patterns are also easy to recognize and respond to so the challenge feels fair, despite how sometimes you'll get pegged by an off-screen enemy's projectile attack.

It's not an easy game - it might actually be a bit too difficult for young kids - but it is a satisfying game to learn and master.

The Jungle Book was one of the few bright spots in the NES's 1994 line-up - if you played any of the Disney-branded NES crap coming out at the time like Aladdin and The Lion King, you know exactly what I mean - and it's still worth playing, even if you've already gone through the 16-bit games.

If all of the games released in the NES's final year on the market were of this quality, who knows how much longer the NES might've held on? Nicely done, Virgin!
_____________
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!