>>27364783It has a simple linear designed path. It would be very difficult to get lost in progress until after the 2nd gym. The gym gives a bump in difficulty by making you gain access to the ss anne before being able to get the third badge.
The second part of the game opens up with an area that has three new towns to explore, the team rocket story line as well as a few others, and a place that lets you train your by now large team. You can easily train a few pokemon to mid levels through this 'middle' game section. Once your strong enough, you go to the last mainland area, which is a kind of bonus area, to test your strength.
The last part is the island, and then back tracking to your home town. The indigo plateau entrance is in virdian the same reason Giovanni is.
Its a simple game design, but achieves its purpose of taking a player across the pokemon world and letting them become the pokemon master.