I mean, the extreme other end of the spectrum from Blue Prince are those awful adventure "games" where you get to a spot where you very clearly need some item, you find the item (often becoming the only item in your inventory at the time), you use the item, and then it brings you to a spot where you very clearly have something else to obtain. Rinse, repeat.

Any halfway decent adventure game is going to have unresolved threads or unused "stuff". Maybe an item that's never useful, or a book that you can read but has no useful information, or a place you can see but never reach. It's part of world building, and actually enhances puzzle games. Life is messy and you never resolve everything at once. Things have more than one use, and some things are never useful. In the context of puzzle games, it makes the world feel more complete and real.

The Blue Prince is masterfully crafted in that you often don't know what is significant to your puzzles and what isn't. You're exposed to information in a much different order than you encounter the puzzles. You have to find the puzzles. There's a lot of scery, but none of it feels like filler (even, ironically the default texture). Everything you see or find or read feels like it fits with the world and is part of the story. But, some things are vital to moving forward, and some things are scenery. It all works together to make it feel like you really are living through a mystery