Late reply to this don't mind me
To play devil's advocate, Eggman Nega was seemingly also trying to escape. It'd make sense to go as fast as you can to shake off that smelly blue rat who's trying to stop you and will stop you if you just ignore him. Plus there was a giant ass camera on it along with the fact Eggman Nega can just go back
Sorry for the extra reply, just wanted to say a few other things that bugged me about the video
It also used Sonic Rush's visual effects to debunk the same Sonic Rivals feat, but like, that's an entirely different game with its own visual style.
Plus as pointed out in the page discussing the feat, it is extremely reasonable to interpret the blurred lines as stars as they follow the sky shown in the earlier level. + in that same level, if you zoom in on the sky, you can see white stars further supporting the blurred lines being stars. Regardless, there's good evidence to say those lines are stars. Plus, about the debris it brought up, wouldn't dodging them still mean characters scale? After all, the escape rocket is travelling that fast so even if the debris were still, you'd still need the speed to dodge on a rocket moving that fast, right? Or am I stupid? idk lemme know
The thing that bugged me the most was also the "fans misinterpret" Sonic Advance 3's background as a star cluster when literally earlier in the video the same creator interpreted the Null Space feat happening due to the Phantom Ruby prototype the Rookie had. At the very least they did say that it was their own interpretation but like still
And speaking of the Null Space, and this'll also be an interpretation point. I did find the portal similarity an interesting point from the video poster, but one key difference I noticed was that neither Sonic nor the Rookie had those glitchy effects on them when they exited, and the portal doesn't seem to have them either, while Classic Sonic and the portal did. Plus the Encyclospeedia, while being a somewhat iffy source, states that this happened due to Sonic and the Rookie's teamwork with teamwork being a huge message of the game, adding further support. ALSO ALSO, there's no indication that the phantom ruby activated unlike with the Rookie VS Infinite fight. Of course, I could just be blind so lemme know what you think on that