While I agree that Shenmue 2 errs closer to the "small, dense" world design that I tend to favor; we have to include S3 in this mix and I found Niaowu to be one of the most pointlessly huge and empty "open" worlds I've ever played. It again comes down to what people want out of Shenmue--some people prioritize big 3D spaces with lots of buildings and NPCs, which is not something I expected from the series as Ryo heads into rural China to train in martial arts.
Even for Shenmue 3 we are still in the "small but dense" world.
For Bailu in particular it's even too dense sometimes, but for the size I think that was perfect since it contains both the village and the natural surroundings.
You can't give the sense of scale of the guilin nature with just the village plaza for example.
Niaowu was a more complex matter, as it should've been smaller and less important, with the third location Baisha being the main focus of the game.
Unfortunately things changed and we got one big Niaowu instead of a smaller Niaowu + Baisha.
Also a sort of city is mandatory in any modern game, modern audience wants that kind of experience.
He has a reason when he's looking for sailors.
Sure, but the game give you a progression for this, "ask your neighborhood first" then "go to the harbor".
Areas aren't restricted, Ryo just says he won't go to certain places which is at odds with his objective which is that Shenhua's father has been kidnapped and thugs have taken over the village. He should be scouring the entire place!
That's also true, but personally more than this, I found more strange the part where Ryo trains with calm wasting days while the thugs rules the place for days, and nobody cares.
That should've been better.
This is true but most games (including Shenmue 2) are a lot better about hiding it.
What do you mean by this? It's tied to story progression in the sense that you can't go to the harbor before the story allows you to. Similarly, getting the forklift job is also tied to story progression.
I meant that IF the harbor area was available only during story progressions, and totally blocked during free exploration, then your point would have been valid since this is an open world game.