The game was heavily inspired by SNK's Metal Slug series, a favorite of the Digital Eclipse team. According to their president Mike Mika, Disney Interactive were initially fine with the prospect of a shooting game based on the movie, but when they were prepared to present the game to then Disney CEO Michael Eisner, cautions began to arise about the violence in the game, which was higher than expected. Due to a lack of time, the game had to be shown to Eisner as it was. Unexpectedly, he adored the game and lamented that the other licensed games based on Lilo & Stitch weren't adopting the same gameplay formula:


The Lilo & Stitch movie directors sent a signed poster to Digital Eclipse thanking them for the game.