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It's subconscious.
I genuinely think it's the relative size of the character on screen. In older games, your sprite was maybe 1% of the screen. in newer games (6+) your character is at least twice the size, effectively halving the relative area in view. Especially with 1 to 1 remakes, this makes places seem much smaller than they appeared.
Smaller world => less to explore => less wonder
