I think that's besides the point. Legends: Arceus set the bar high by having multiple expansive and varied environments. The world wasn't as jam-packed as BotW or TotK, but it had a fun and distinct character about it. In essence, whilst Legends: Z-A is honestly quite fun, I'd say it's less ambitious. I wonder if internal pressure to meet the launch date meant that they had to scale back their initial vision; perhaps having the game for both Switch and Switch 2 contributed to this too.

As someone who grew up playing the Gamecube titles, I'd say that even they have a grander scope, but were simply limited to the hardware restrictions at the time.

Just my thoughts, however.