I'm not one to ever buy strategy guides. But I considered buying the Mario Galaxy strategy guide early on because I thought I'd never figure out most of the secret stars and such. I thought it might be one of those games where it's almost impossible to find everything without consulting either the internet or a guide. I guess I was wrong.

I popped in my GC copy of Sonic Mega Collection the other day and realized that I had never played Sonic 3 or Sonic and Knuckles before. So after quickly playing through the first two games, I decided to give them a try. Much to my surprise, they both seem a lot different than the first two. The first thing I noticed was that "better graphics" in these two games usually meant "more detailed". I personally loved the simplicity in the graphics of the first two games and in my mind they actually look better than the pixel-fest that is Sonic 3. Knuckles is a better game I think, but I'm only about half way through either one. They are both definitely harder and more challenging than 1 and 2 combined.