Joosp
The journey no one knows but you
He's a speedrun character.
See, my problem with this is that Sonic will always outspeed him. The speed thok makes Sonic the fastest character in almost every given situation. Unless you make the character's speed close enough to the speed thok (see Inazuma, which ended up being a mess to control in my opinion), a character simply won't be able to overtake a Sonic player unless you get really fancy with shortcuts. Puffball's ability is less used for speed than it is to simply survive a jump you missed or to get to higher ground, but it can't bring the player high enough to let them take advantage of possible shortcuts. In a pure speedrun sense, Sonic is almost always the better choice.
I don't want to discourage the idea of making a character with an intended goal of being played differently, it's just that Puffball technically doesn't reach his intended goal. Jasper is intended to be a character that can control himself in the air incredibly well and can not only make landings soundly but can also traverse difficult platforming sections if he just gets enough air to soar over it. I love to see concepts like these be brought to fruition into a character, and while you're on the right track of doing something similar with Puffball, he's just not adequate for what you're intending to do.