"You can doubt me, but I'm still going to protect you because I am a good friend. And because it distracts me from the government agents replacing my plants with violins." LOL! That's still making me laugh. I didn't find it funny at first, but now I get it.
I noticed something about the game's debut trailer. In the two scenes where all four of them are together the path is the same but in the second scene, you can see the path is leading toward a swamp-like area. So maybe the "warp speed" (as Tails calls it) sections of the game are segments in between areas.