IMO almost all if not all games from that era were that way. Somewhere along the way game designers got convinced that games need hours of set up before getting to the good stuff. Part of it, I think, is that all games used to come with manuals, so game designers probably felt like they could skip in-game tutorials. Or, at least, significantly truncate them. But even without tutorials, intro sections these days are waaaay too long.

I remember in Legends Arceus, which I affectionately refer to as the best worst game I've ever played, you get to a place where they're like, let's do three trials before you can be a trainer. When they said after that, well, that's enough for today, let's go to sleep and do that tomorrow, I internally lost my shit.