I dunno how you can look at the way something like the Aetia region all fits together and go “bad level design”, especially compared to XC2.
What was really all that magical or joyful about the actual experience of exploring Alrest? Field skill checks and chests full of common core crystals? Remember how hard Gormott was to navigate? If you’re coming at it from an idea of setting then you can definitely prefer 2 but the map design in 3 is really a cut above and is a far better support for the game’s mechanics, even if those mechanics are “play flute at dead body”.
Will add of course there are great, magical parts of XC2 as well, Leftheria is my favourite but even places like Uraya, Tantal failed to connect on a “Xenoblade” level. Uraya looked nice but it was mostly a linear path to a boring town. Tantal had huge areas of absolutely nothing. Getting to the top of Ribbi Flats and being able to see pretty much the entire Fornis region and everything you experienced over the last 10 hours, that’s magical to me. I know it’s not “you are inside a big fish” but it suits the game wonderfully.
While I don't think 3's world is bad or badly designed at all, and I still really love it, I do think that 2 has the edge here, and that's partially due to the whole 'fairy tail/completely out-there' vibes you get from a lot of the places, yes. But I think the main thing that 2 has over 3 is rewards and reasons to explore. In 3, all you can really find are containers (which other than maybe nopon coins don't feel very useful or worth it, but even nopon coins don't feel very exciting to get), and dead bodies. Which yes, there's a nice thematic part to sending them and getting some affinity is nice, but other than that, there's not much there.
In 2, there's a ton of things you can find by exploring: Chests can contain core crystals, which even the common ones are nice to stockpile so that you can pump them into the gacha machine to get all the Blades. You can also get blade core chips, some of which can be VERY good and completely change how you play certain blades or really help your combat. And accessories, too, just like in 3. You can also get money, which while you DO also get that in 3, in 3 money is completely useless; not so in 2. In 2, you need money to buy all the items at shops to unlock their 'patron perk', as well as there are just a lot of money sinks in the game for buying really expensive core crystals and some of the Blade affinity tree unlocks and such.
And that's really the main thing 2 has over 3: Blade affinity trees. These ALWAYS give you tons of reasons to explore, since you might find a set of monsters that you need to kill to unlock a node, or items that you need for a node, or a Unique Monster that you need to kill for Zenobia, or like... 5000 other things. Blade affinity trees basically reward you for doing literally everything there is to do in the game, and it creates a really nice feedback loop that I feel like isn't quite as present in XC3.
Granted I'm not yet done with the game, but so far at least, it feels to me like XC3 is a great game for people who want to do a lot of things and most of the hero quests and such, but isn't as rewarding for people who want to 100% the game and do literally everything in it. On that front, XC2 has it beaten pretty soundly, IMO.
