Do you love Sonic the Hedgehog? Probably not, if your first exposure to his games came after Sonic Adventure. If you’re a fan from the glory days of the SEGA Genesis, though, you might remember an interesting little combo cartridge called Sonic & Knuckles, the expansion-slash-standalone game that introduced Sonic’s red Echidna rival as a playable character. Sonic & Knuckles is back on the Xbox 360, but after a decade or so since its debut, does it still hold merit as a game worth playing?

Gameplay:

As a general rule, a 2D Sonic game is a beautiful mix of speed, reflexes, and platform action, a formula honed during the golden age of platformers. Sonic & Knuckles isn’t an exception to this, even though it used a slightly slower pacing to encourage more exploration by using Knuckles’ wall climbing ability. The goal remains the same. Finish each level in fewer than 10 minutes, grab as many rings as you can, don’t get hit by badniks, and, if you can, snatch up a handful of Chaos Emeralds.

Some of the levels are unnoticeably large. Unless you set out to take divergent paths each playthrough, there is a chance you’ll never see some parts of each zone. The environments are all filled with loops, springs, and zone specific gimmicks like tumblers, pumps, or ghost-scaring light switches. Each level is full of power-ups that range from a variety of unique force fields to invincibility. There is only one button you need to press, defaulted to A, to make Sonic or Knuckles jump. Holding down on the D-Pad and pressing A still revs up a Sonic Spin, and pressing A again mid jump still activates Sonic’s extra attack or Knuckles’ glide. A save feature has been added that allows players to save at any point during gameplay through the pause menu, and leaderboards have been added to track high scores.

Graphics:

Sonic & Knuckles hasn’t gotten a facelift since it debuted on the Genesis, and that’s neither good nor bad. Old school games will always have a split with its following: those that want to see it updated and those that don’t want anything changed at all. Luckily, Sonic & Knuckles has always had vibrant and colorful sprites and the animations, while not the most sophisticated, still enjoy that certain un-definable charm. The only visual change is an optional one. If you like, you can smooth out the pixilated edges on the sprites, or leave them as they originally were on the Genesis.

Sound:

Sonic & Knuckles does enjoy some fantastic background music. Each zone, and each boss and mini-boss encounter, has a catchy and memorable background tune that’ll get stuck in your head and stay there. The sound effects are vintage Sonic sound effects, which makes a lot of sense when you consider that Sonic & Knuckles is part of the vintage Sonic collection. The voice acting, by the way, is fantastic. The one spoken like sounds exactly how it should: “Saaaaay-gaaaah.”

Longevity:

With any sort of skill or persistence, you’ll stretch one hour out of Sonic & Knuckles, two hours tops. The game actually has decent replay value, though, but only if you’ve already purchased a few games from the SEGA Vintage Collection. If you downloaded Sonic 2 or Sonic 3, true to Genesis form you’ll be able to play through those games as Knuckles from the Bonus Menu in Sonic & Knuckles. It’s a nice little feature, even if it won’t do you much good without the other games. Still, Sonic & Knuckles is only 400 Microsoft Points ($5.00 / £3.40) like the rest of the vintage Sonic collection, which makes this a very reasonable purchase for Sonic fans or new gamers looking for some classic platforming action.

The achievements are all relatively easy, especially for Sonic veterans, with the toughest probably being collecting a full set of Chaos Emeralds. Even this is relatively simple for patient players, however, since you can save any time you want. This ratchets down the difficulty, though, since it gives you infinite chances as long as you manage your saves wisely. Even so, the ability to save is a wise addition, and it’s ultimately up to each player how they use it.

Overall:

Sonic & Knuckles may not be my favorite Sonic game from the Genesis days (that title still belongs to Sonic 2), but when you’re asked to pick a favorite from your favorites, can you really go wrong? Not really, and you can’t go wrong here, either.