5810170 It was one-sided the second they showed the orb.
Just as much as it would have been one-sided if they'd used a Chaos Emerald.
...
A lot of people forget that while the emeralds don't offer the same advantages that they do for Sonic, Shadow and Silver, they do still ofer an increase in general strength, speed, etc, for the other characters in the Sonic universe.

5810204 Or, i guess, if he was fighting a Super Mario Bros character and there was a star.

5810280 He was fighting the Super Smash Bros version of Greninja.

5811481 you made that quite clear, yes.