xsssssssss
To clarify this a bit, it's not that it wasn't fun, but her first tester felt the pace dropped (which arguably was due to her choice to go beyond what it was designed for and check every available location (via save/load) to determine what would be "the best rooms for her save"). So it's something that depends on the playstyle.
That of course doesn't mean any locations will be scrapped, just that they will be available to visit starting in future chapters. Understandably, going from five explorable locations to over twenty was a big jump, so unlocking them more gradually makes sense to me.