Do the super sonic titan battles clash with sonic's borderline overly grounded/borderline board portrayal in the game?

[Forgeafrontier]

Something that has been on my mind lately with regards to how sonic has been written in frontiers is the possibility of him being just a bit to grounded? My view on this shifts quite a bit tbh. Sonic frontiers does have the issue of not at all feeling like a sonic game all around (it honestly doesn't feel like any game). I think sonic should be a jovial character with an upbeat personality portrayed in shows like boom, satam, colors, (dialogue is not the best I know lol), the ova and even the storybook games to an extent. Frontiers is honestly the least jovial and most mellowed out sonic has ever been written and it does have me wondering whether or not its even sonic.

The titan fights really show that sonic is a super up beat jovial character that can do awesome things like make a giant hole in one titan, use another titans own weapons against them, or even chopping a titan in half with its own sword. Sonic doesn't really act or have the personality you would expect him to have while watching these fights. Sonic feels super cool and up beat during the titan fights yet in the cutscene after he is talking and acting very casually, the giganto fight and the cutscene that plays after proves my point. I am not defending these fights and saying they are perfect, I could criticize them for feeling to rip off dragonball and less sonic but they do show that sonic himself is not a grounded character.

Sonic is a cool jovial character yet doesn't feel as such in frontiers, I know some people are gonna say its due to the tone, and serious nature of this games story but does that tone fit sonic? This leads to a larger issue like frontiers tone, art direction and overall atmosphere not really fitting sonic at all. They could have had a response to this like making sonic traditionally jovial (with the ability to take things seriously when needed) as  a way to have him stand from the dreary atmosphere and add a life to this overall lifeless game. My opinion on this does change quite oftenly because I do think frontiers have a lot of good to its writing.

[Diogenes]

Yeah the game sucks, tonally; Sonic's characterization is a reflection of the larger issue. They wanted an air of mystery and solemness as you're walking through the ruins of a lost civilization, but the story surrounding them is just so dumb and the tone is so contrary to the goofy cartoon animal that you're controlling that it doesn't work. It's too low-energy to feel like a proper Sonic game but there's no dignity in a smirking teen doing kickflips over a graveyard either. The Titan fights are an attempt to bring some of that energy back, but it's so sudden and out of sync with the rest of the game that it's kind of jarring. It doesn't feel like an escalation of what you've been doing, more like you've finished all your chores and suddenly you get dropped into MGR:R as Super Saiyan Raiden for 5 minutes. The game doesn't feel holistic; it just feels like whatever ideas they could cobble together into something resembling a coherent game.

[Wraith]

Sonic takes the same attitude from the titan fights into the fights with basic enemies so I didn't see it as all that out of place. Most of the cutscenes are pretty straight-laced, though. I don't know if I'd call it a case of tonal dissonance but it can get pretty draining.

I think my bigger problem is that Frontiers doesn't give him anyone to bounce off of or show off to. Just some missing friends and hordes of enemies to fight. I don't think there's anything wrong with the way he's characterized per say, but with most of the cast out of commission and all the new characters being either long dead or AI, there's no one for him to bounce off of and bring out different sides of him.

It's one reason I don't vibe with the game's tone overall. I wouldn't mind a moodier Sonic game but it's got this lethargic feeling most of the time that I can't really jive with. Most of the cast is stationary, imprisoned and stirring in their feelings. The flashy anime fights are there to try and break it up but they feel weirdly weightless in a scenario that already feels this "lost." The Super Sonic battles in older games resonate a lot more because it feels like there's something on the line.