>>36769134>after you had been forced to go to Vermilion to get a badge to pass through a cave to Lavender TownActually it was Cerulean. You could skip Surge entirely, and then you could skip beating Team Rocket for a while and even get into Saffron City (and thus register it as a flying point and get a couple things) before ever fighting Team Rocket. Then you could skip Erika all the way until you needed Strength for Victory Road (or Seafoam Islands if we were o "streamline" the game).
As a whole, there was only one leader that NPCs forced you to fight and that was Brock. All the rest you were only forced to fight for the HM and even then it was very loose and you could do things in a different order instead of all of them right away in the exact same order.
If Kanto were designed like Unova was, it would look more like this, with Silph Scope not existing, an NPC blocking the exit of Lavender Town and Saffrom and Celadon being swapped. Also an NPC blocking the south of Pallet Town until you beat Blaine so you don't get to Cinnabar skipping Seafoam Islands.
Truly enough the games became more linear with time (reaching their peak at BW and SM) but your other examples aren't too fortunate for your point.
Sure, you couldn't fight Pryce before defeating Team Rocket but if memory isn't failing me, you COULD fight Team Rocket before Jasmine and Chuck... or do it after.
You also COULD go to Slateport without defeating Brawly because you can get to Steven feeling your way. Which isn't as insane as it sounds because the game does let you see adjacent tiles without flash so you don't get so disoriented.
The last one, yeah, that's the kind of thing Unova was all about.
