My problem with the side stuff is that the maps look a lot bigger than they are.
There are giant chunks of the map that are just not traversable.
Like I understand you want barriers between Midgar and Junon (they existed in the OG) but even long before you get to the Mines or out in the desert area between Kalm and Midgar, there are chunks of the map that just can't be explored.
Like if you look at Gongaga Port, most things to the immediate southeast (from what I could tell at least) is not explorable. It's there on the map, but they just didn't open it to exploration.
Which makes all the interesting over world stuff (towers, lifesprings, altars) all be within like 300m of something else. It nearly railroads exploration instead of letting stuff be well off the beaten path or at least prevents you from feeling like it's been a minute since you stumbled on something.
The game just has a very weird scope and scale issue. Like the world map is overall small.
The distances we're shown in game would make the FF7 world fit on the
moon
several times over.
I'm not asking for the map to be wide af and traveling takes forever for the sake of it but Gongaga airport and the next story airport are like 3km apart if that.
The name is wackyteen for a reason.
Never doubt.