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As I explained in the last thread, there's no real empty space, all those areas are jammed into some data structure (probably an array since it's Gameboy ASM) and pointers to their memory address get referenced when you are in an area that connects to the area that is going to be loaded. That's just how "open world" games worked before Morrowind and GTA 3 popularized open worlds where the whole map was open. Banjo Kazooie/Mario 64's hub world is full of empty space. So are all the Dark Souls games. There are examples of games where you could go anywhere before GTA3/Morrowind, but they were limited and the two best known examples, GTA 1 and Daggerfall are just earlier games in the series that would go on to popularize it.
Pic related, GTA 1 came out a year after Pokemon Red/Green. There was a ton of novelty back in the day that you could drive anywhere in the city, but Pokemon is the better game, and GTA got old really really fast when it wasn't in an immersive 3rd person perspective.
