The Lion King (franchise) of five games. It features the characters Rafiki, Timon and Pumbaa. A game called "The Lion King 1½" was published in 2003 for the Game Boy Advance, based on the direct-to-video film and featuring Timon and Pumbaa as the playable characters. Some of the film's characters are playable in "Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure", a spin-off of the Tony Hawk games. In the Disney Interactive Studios and Square Enix video game "Kingdom Hearts", Simba appears as an ally that Sora can summon during battles. He also appears again as a summon character in "". In "Kingdom Hearts II", the Pride Lands
Simba "lazy and troublesome." "The Austin Chronicle"s Robert Faires felt that Simba and the other "Lion King "characters, though "true", were simply unoriginal retreads of preceding animated characters who were "swiped from other Disney cartoons." Hal Hinson of "The Washington Post" gave the character a negative review. Labeling Timon and Pumbaa the only interesting characters in "The Lion King", Hinson questioned Simba's role as the film's hero. Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times "agreed, "A movie's heroes may have their names above the title, but often as not it's the sidekicks who get the real work done." Turan went on