Tricks involved :
If you get on the right position (you can look to the left or to the right, both work), and then press both jump and left at the same time (and keep them pressed), you will grab the ledge. It is very precise.
After killing the hyena, go towards the wall and then do a little jump. If you are fast enough and Simba grabs the ledge (not very hard to do), you should skip the cutscene.
Tricks involved :
Keep right pressed and press jump at the right time. If you do fast strat you want to tap jump, if you want a safe strat you keep jump pressed (it will make you grab the rhino’s tail and you will be able to get on the giraffe)
Backup if you miss the jump : video
Tricks involved :
After the first climbing screen, you can jump to the right and then roll to get in the shortcut. In the speedrun, there are 2 ways, either you roll at the bird and then jump or you get damaged by it and then jump. The first one is faster but not by much, so just do whatever you feel is easier.
You need to do precise jumps for this. Following the video’s jumps, you have :
A variation is not to roll at the 9th jump. You lose a bit of time, but the 10th jump will be easier thanks to the delay.
Tricks involved :
There is a pixel-perfect place on the left side that allows Simba to stay alive even without moving. Look at the video and find your cue (mine is Simba’s tail). Of course this doesn’t save time, but it helps to rest the hands during a run. (I believe there are other places too, but I don’t have cues for them. This one is easy to do and you can fail it a lot without having any problem)
Tricks involved :
Run towards the wall and jump with just enough pressure. If you are too close to the wall, if you aren’t running, or if you don’t jump with the right pressure, you won’t clip.
Run towards the right and tap jump for 1 frame (my cue is around the bush). Keep right pressed at least until you clip (you shouldn’t even stop pressing right since you will land on a platform and jump immediately). Tapping for 1 frame is hard, you can also make a full jump, but it won’t be at the exact same place as the 1 frame jump.
If you look at the setup video, you’ll get a consistent setup (but this is advanced and will require a lot of practice). For the 1 frame jump it’s useful but not very important, but for the full jump it’s very important because without a setup you have a 25% chance of not being able to clip (the reason is given in the video)
You don’t need to be damaged to clip, but first clip needs damage because of where you land, and second clip requires damage too because killing the hedgehogs is long.
Tricks involved :
Run towards the right, and before getting to the edge, roll. If you do it correctly, you will land on the platform. Too soon or too late will make you miss, and you will end up at the bottom of the waterfall, which is pretty much reset.
There are 2 versions that you can see on the video. I don’t think explanations are necessary.
Perfect monkey goes like this : jump around the beginning of the platform (as long as you are jumping from the brown background, you should be fine I think) and you will land on the monkey without getting hit. Then quickly go to the next platform and when he stops, jump to hit him before he can attack. Go to the left, he will only hop one time, and hit him again. Grab the ledge at the right timing to get damage boost and be able to reach the next platform quicker, and land on the monkey while running before he can attack, then land on the ledge. Keep right pressed and you will get hit by the monkey but stay on the platform and touch him, resulting in him going faster and you being ready to go up the next platform quickly. Do it and jump on the monkey when he settles down. He will then make 2 hops, and you can jump on him to finish him. Of course everything will not go as planned. If you can’t land on the monkey before he can attack, here are some backup strats :
Tricks involved :
There are 3 skips in the level ; the 1st and 3rd are the same, but the 2nd has another strategy. For the 1st and 3rd : run towards the left and press roar when you reach the wall (or just spam roar like me, it works because you can’t roar when you’re moving). The cheetah will get tired, you need now to use left + X to throw the cheetah, and you will get through the wall. For the 2nd, luck is involved. You can’t roar because the cheetah will jump on you if you do, so you need to go against the wall and wait for the cheetah to get tired. It can take between 1 and 4 hits from the cheetah. Once it’s tired, you can use left + X like the others.
Run towards the right, and jump right before the edge. Then after an amount of time (you will need practice or cues to get the timing), you need to spam Y and go left. Simba should slash to the right then to the left, and grab the ledge. This is tricky at first, but with some practice, you can get it first try most of the time.
Tricks involved :
At the beginning of the level, get the first cheetah against the left wall. Then, kill it with a simple slash (Y) and right after grab it (left + X). It’s very easy to do. Then you will end up at the end of the level, just wait for the end to show itself and finish the stage.
When you clip through the floor, go right to land on the platform, and wait around 0.7s (exactly 41 frames at 60.1fps according to the video). Then go full speed to the left. (going faster doesn’t save time, but being too slow would prevent you from skipping cycles)
Depending on RNG, you can skip at most 2 geysers. For visual cue, the rightmost geyser will be the first to occur, and then you’ll see the next geyser be random :
This is because the geysers always go from right to left. So, in total, you have a 25% chance of skipping 2 geysers, 25% chance of skipping 1 geyser, and 50% chance of skipping nothing.
I’ve seen people die after doing the skip, and it can be quite frustrating when you don’t master it so here’s a safe strat : Right after you grab the cheetah, go to the right. You will land on the platform right before the final “screen”, and there’s a checkpoint there. ( It is also possible to get back there after landing down, but then it’s a bit harder : you have to jump and slash at the right time ( the same timing as the jump in Pride Rock ) to the right from the rock on the right while avoiding the falling stuff )
/!\ when you’re on that platform, the countdown to the end of the level is not working. So this safe strat makes you lose a bit of time (might be good for races though for instance). Also, I didn’t check if it would work for skipping cycles. You might want to wait 0.7s again - after checkpoint - when only the rightmost crater is visible.
Tricks involved :
Go on the left side of the middle hyena (you can jump directly or you can land on the floor and then jump there, the first one being faster I think). Stay next to the hyena while looking right, and the 3 hyenas should all join up. Now you can jump on them to kill them at the same time. If you move left right before landing on them, you will face left during the animation and it saves time since you will need to move less to get to the exit.
Also, for the scene 2 exits after this, I found a backup that might help you or not : if you’re still down and the hyena ran instead of jumping ( it should happen when you have a death in the level ), you can kill it while grabbing the ledge by spamming attack when you’re grabbing the ledge ( video )
Tricks involved :
If you kill Scar when he’s off screen, you will skip his leaving animation. To do that, there is a precise trick to do. You need to jump on Scar but before triggering the animation, slash. If you do it wrong, either you will just slash Scar or his animation will be quick ( video ). If you do it right, his animation will last longer ( video ). This allows you to move even if Scar is in the animation (you technically don’t need to slash, but it helps). About this trick :
I have noticed 3 places where fire can be a bother and you can skip it. For the 1st one, your jump to get on the platform needs to be low enough not to trigger the fire (but careful, too low and you won’t land on the platform). For the 2nd one, you need to jump high enough to get on the left side of the small platform, that will skip the fire on the next platform. For the 3rd one, you need to jump from the right side of the platform.
After the 3rd fire skip, you can run and jump to the right and slash in the air. That will give Simba enough momentum to grab the ledge, a few platforms away from Scar.
This tutorial was made by Cesese, using videos from Cesese and Akiteru. It was played on the Snes version of The Lion King, and on Easy mode, but the strats apply to Difficult mode too. If you find something that you would like to implement, or if there is something you don’t understand in the speedrun, feel free to tell me ( fediverse @bunni@raru.re ; discord “#Cesese セセズ#4172” ( though you should rather go to the Lion King community server ) ; speedrun.com )