Sonic 3 & Knuckles high playthrough 2

After my first high playthrough a month ago, I played through Sonic 3 Complete again with Tails only, then again with Knuckles only... and then I started a Sonic-only file and used the special stage rings found in the first 2 acts of the game to clear all the special stages and unlock Super Sonic... now on that save file with Super Sonic unlocked, I'll play through the game again while high...

This is basically an easy mode playthrough at this point, because of how Super Sonic makes you invincible as long as you keep collecting rings... it'll be interesting to go through the whole game like this and see how different it feels from my earlier high playthrough.

Lava Reef Zone... overall I think this is my favorite zone in the game... even with Hyper Sonic, gotta be careful not to get crushed in Act 1 or fall off in Act 2... Act 2 also leads into that weird Master Emerald shrine bathed in darkness, in a cave...

Oh, this place is actually Angel Island Zone, which got burned in the first level of Sonic 3... and now has the Death Egg ontop of it, making it feel like Knuckles is the last boss... until you get to the Hidden Palace...

lol this Lava Reef boss is a joke when you have the flame shield... until I needlessly squandered it on getting hit... but then it was still easy anyway.

Hidden Palace feels more like an adventure field area, like in SA1, than an actual level...

Eggman took the restored Master Emerald, so Sonic took the restored chaos emeralds and went after him.

Death Egg Zone... that springy part can get annoying...
Act 2... barely made it with all my rings in tact... enough for the energy ball minigame... stocked way up on rings... for a boss that actually there's not much benefit to using Super Sonic on...

Doomsday Zone... the true last level...  Egg robo running away... rings getting progressively harder to find... this last boss is so awesome. Only chance is to go hyper...

That playthrough took exactly an hour... It wasn't that much easier than the first non-Super Sonic+Tails playthrough, it was just more cool, and going through all the levels again for like the 2nd or 4th time made everything seem like practically automatic. The Knuckles playthrough was the easiest, and the Tails playthrough was easy too but I spent a lot of extra time combing the levels looking for 1ups (as you can tell by my file select screenshot). I guess I've mastered this game now...

Screenshots: