Leo the Lion

This game is most definitely enjoyable when you are still able to put these things on your head. Even more when you can remember sitting in front of CRT screen as a child, trying to desperately complete waterfall jumping sequence. I can safely say that it's one of most memorable games of my childhood. Beautifully painted graphics, simple rules, and enjoyable story surrounded by excellent narrative, result in unique experience that made me click "buy" the second I got information that game hit the market (virtual) shelves. But memories aside. How can I describe Leo? For sure it's challenging game, due to it's flaws in hit detection, and actual platform location. For some people it may be an issue, but I can surely say that it's worth it if you want to go back in time to see for yourself how nostalgia works.

First of all, this GOG edition works great, no problems running under predefined DOSBox config, installation is easy and painless. The game itself? Oh, it's the opposite. Riddled with odd decisions, poor design, frustrating controls, ever-changing rules and powerups, confusing progression, atrocious combat, sluggish segments, unfair savepoints, obscured mechanics, unreadable enemies and more! The graphics might be OK for the most of it while the music is definitely this game's highest point. Nice trip down memory lane. Do not play, I am serious.

Uff, this game is hard. I somehow managed to beat as a child, and somehow I managed to beat now. There're many annoying bugs or areas to complete, but overall it's worth it. It's very short, but if you played it as a child, you will play it just to beat it one more time - to prove to yourself that you can :)

This was one of my first games on PC (not counting Atari ST my dad had) as a kid. It's may be difficult for me to write an unbiased review of this, but I think having finished the game again last night as an adult lets me see it in a new perspective. Music absolutely still holds up, and graphics are good on technical level for its time, with detailed backgrounds and well animated enemies, the only thing to complain about is subjective feelings on the art style. There's a lot of variety to the game, with multiple sceneries and different gameplay across levels. Unfortunately, this variety is the root of the game's main problem. Different levels control different, with different jump physics and attacks, and even two underwater levels don't really play the same. It looks like developers had to separately code all the different means of control, and so they didn't have the time to bring them all to the needed level of polish, no pun intended. This results mostly in atrocious collision detection, and I remember two glitches in particular that I encountered when I was a child: sometimes being unable to properly land from a jump in the magic castle and the chalk exploit in the pyramid level. Don't get me started on the first underwater level where I burned through all my lives and had to use a continue. There were interesting concepts like quasi-adventure game item delivery in the last level(s), but overall the designers were just throwing ideas on the wall to see what sticks. I enjoyed going down the memory lane even with all the flaws the game had, but it's hard to recommend it to someone who's never played it and just wants to buy something to have fun. Buy it if you have an open mind and want to experience a part of Polish gaming history, warts and all.