Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-679780-20170306231922/@comment-679780-20170307200512

Super Sonic maybe one of the most powerful forms Sonic has, but he is still Sonic can be just as fooled whether cool blue or golden yellow.

It's possible the emeralds were drained to a degree because of the ammount of energy needed to awaken gaia, but it can also be because the chaos emeralds are needed to restore the world, thus their drained state is fate needed for the world to heal itself.