>>35775254It serves as a point of scale, highlighting just how much bigger the scope of the game and overworld is compared to the original.
Is it as accurate and full-featured as Kanto in the final product? Of course not! But, it's not trying to be so. Kanto here is only meant to be one town. The final release greatly cut down the scale of the region, and with that it made more sense to reproduce Kanto 1:1.
See pic related for a more subtle example of what was being done here, in a much older game.
