It’s not been easy being a Sonic fan for the past, oh, decade or so. Ever since Sega’s super mascot made the transition to 3D (beginning with the never-released Sonic Xtreme on Saturn), it’s been one misstep after another for Sega’s mascot. Fortunately, the original Genesis gems have been re-released several times during the same time period, allowing old-school fans to stick their heads in the sand and remember why they were fans in the first place. This latest re-release is a port of the original Sonic the Hedgehog for the Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console, and it’s still just as fun now as it was nearly 16 years ago.

The Sonic franchise is all about speed, and the original Sonic the Hedgehog personified that like no title had before it. Sonic himself is a fast little critter, but the nearly perfect level design facilitates going even faster than he can alone often. Levels feature plenty of loops, hills, springboards, and more to keep the action frantic. Holding at least one ring gives Sonic a second chance anytime he’s hit by a bad guy or obstacle, which gives the player liberty to take risks and test the limits of each level. There are other power-ups to collect as well, including a protective shield that absorbs one hit, invincibility that works just like the star in that other guy’s franchise, and speed boots to make things even faster for a short period of time.

Simply going fast isn’t enough for an entertaining game though, so to keep things from getting too mundane there is also plenty of optional exploring to do if you feel so inclined. Most levels have several different paths to take, each with its own rewards and challenges. Of course, if you don’t feel like it you can just run like the wind and zip to the end, but if you venture out just a bit you’ll reap generous rewards in the form of extra rings, lives, and more. You’ll probably need those extra lives too, because the game becomes increasingly challenging over time, and of course Dr. Robotnik will do all he can to stop you in your tracks.

 In my tests both the Wii Remote and GameCube controller work fine in the game, but that isn’t surprising since you only need to move and jump. The small d-pad on both controllers isn’t as much of an annoyance as I thought it’d be, although I found that it felt a little better for this game on the Wii Remote than it did on my Wavebird. So overall there’s a slight hit to the controls due to the smaller d-pad, but not enough to have a huge impact on playability.

Amazingly, the game still looks great all these years later. The locations are diverse, with vibrant colors that pop out at you in progressive scan, and the game loses very little graphic quality even if you artificially stretch it out to a 16:9 display should you feel inclined. If something is fast, it’s fast, so the sense of speed is impressive even now, and solid level and character design also stands the test of time. In particular, there’s a good bit of variety in Robotnik’s mechanical minions for an early 16-bit title, each trapping a helpless animal inside that’s freed and hops away when Sonic takes out the bad guy.

And who can forget the soundtrack, with catchy tunes that perfectly compliment each new zone? Sonic the Hedgehog had some memorable sound effects in its heyday, and those all still sound great even now. Unfortunately, I did notice some very minor problems with the sound emulation (turning the sign at the end of each act in particular doesn’t sound right at all), but only because those sounds are so ingrained in my brain that I know them all by heart. Newbies and the less-fanatical probably won’t notice or care.

Another problem is that the original game had occasional problems with slowdown, particularly when things got chaotic (chaotix?) in the water-filled Labyrinth Zone. Since this is basic emulation of the original Genesis’ hardware, that problem has unfortunately not been fixed for this re-release.