>>52567824The problem is that it didn't open up at all in the mid-game.
Most previous pokemon games in the series have a tunneled intro, but open up greatly in terms of where you can go and how you can approach things by the 3rd/4th badge or so.
Even to the point of being able to skip over gym leaders for substantial periods of time in Gen 1 and Gen 2.
Unova is much more of a hall way. It never opens up significantly. You get a handful of dead end areas opened up after Surf and Strength, but not a ton.
Take Hoenn, it is extremely cluttered as you put it, but it also feels very interconnected for it, and you feel like you have full run of an entire region by the mid game and you don't feel like you're being driven in one direction all the time.
Where in Unova, you always feel the game waving you forwards, pushing you along and not giving you much choice in slowing down or cutting back to an older area outside of Fly.
