I'm revisiting this game and it is rage-inducing. I used to play this on the SNES and I remembered that the Be Prepared level was difficult but actually the whole game is insane.
As a cub, I was killed by water, hyenas, vultures, and spiders.
As an adult lion, Simba is killed by lava, bats, and for some reason snow leopards???
But the best part about this game is when you become adult Simba and can smack annoying monkeys. Very satisfying.
I will not betray myself in support of this. You don't have to love Scar but he literally already has a backstory with Mufasa that requires neither of them to be orphans.
The fact that Simba has a son who is a cub during the tv show but was never seen or mentioned in Lion King 2: Simba's Pride suggests that the cub did not survive to adulthood.