>>42808547I did
and pirated Sword.
Wild Areas paint themselves as some open world, when they are really just the one linear path getting tangled onto itself. You can go exploring, but it effectively is just going to a future or past route that would have a blockade to the next city until you progress.
Crystal Clear makes it so you aren’t blocked from progressing, and there are millions of ways (I’m not even joking) to progress with just Gyms alone.
You can access nearly every single tile of Jhoto and Kanto without needing HMs or a certain badge, every Gym Leader has 16 different teams, all of which you can battle and rematch to your heart’s content, and you can choose from a large pool of starters.
