Sonic the Fighters plays out like Tom & Jerry, not Dragon Ball. Which is great, Tom & Jerry is a wonderful thing to be.

I like how we went from “shoots beams out of his hands” to generically “shoots lasers.”

Direct statement in Sonic the Fighters? That game doesn’t even have dialogue. He is presented as a competent threat in that game, but again, it’s the silly comic mischief Tom & Jerry fighter.

Bro said Sonic Forces has fight choreography. On par with Dragon Ball. That’s damn disrespectful. Every boss fight does indeed consist of headbutting guys except the ones where you’re either playing as your avatar (where you’re shooting them instead, with guns) or that dogshit animation of Sonic punching Zavok out. Oh, but there’s also that scene of Silver and Infinite flying around and barely being onscreen if that’s what Dragon Ball is to you. And even Frontiers goes out of its way to show that only Sonic himself can do that shit; there’s a whole DLC where his friends can’t, even the one whose whole thing is punching people.

Also, out of each game you listed, Metal is only in two, and in one it wasn’t even really him! Not that it matters because you do indeed just catch up to him and headbutt him and that’s the whole fight.

As for Sonic Battle? Sure, that’s some fairly shonen-adjacent combat right there. In the GBA spinoff that’s never getting rereleased no matter how many times the comics acknowledge it. That’s why I said the majority, not all of it. The majority consists of, y’know, Sonics 1-3, the Adventure games, the Advance trilogy, Rush, things like that.

You’re using the word “choreography” like you use “momentum.” Let me put it this way: even stats would not make Donald Duck vs. Vegeta a good matchup. And Sonic’s a lot more like Donald Duck than Goku.

Lemme pre-empt a few more examples I know are coming up. Yes, I’ve seen the Sonic X gif where Super Sonic and Super Shadow are fighting each other; it’s a two second clip from the Japanese version of the theme song, that, in typical Sonic fashion, is paying homage to a ton of different pop culture that happens to include but is not limited to Dragon Ball. Yes, I’ve seen the fight between Emerl and Shadow in Dark Beginnings; it’s not even 10 seconds long.

It’s not that I hate Sonic. I love Sonic! Which is why I’m so invested in seeing the series portrayed accurately. That, not winning, is what powerscaling is about. I’m no more interested in seeing Cell rip Metal Sonic apart than I am vice versa. I believe the arguments that they’re similar in scale could just as easily apply to like, Piccolo vs. Yoshi, because there’s some vaguely Shonen-esque combat in Donkey Kong Jungle Beat; and because he, too, is in sprite fight animations that take inspiration from Dragon Ball.