First impression could be that you do have some restrictions to movement but a lot of those are time, and to a lesser extent energy related. Not really the world size or shape. The game is well designed to nudge you into doing the sequence of quests which require some planning and exploring, and doesn't throw you into doing 10 things immediately. The first 3 days are perfect for this:
Day 1: Clear some land and plant 15 Parsnips. You will likely run out of Energy depending on how much you clear and/or you chop Trees for a Chest. Maybe plant any Mixed Seeds you find. If you have extra time, find some people in Town as that social quest is immediately active.
Day 2: You do not need to do anything on your Farm except Water. So what to do...? Ah, you get the note to see Willy about the Fishing Rod. Perfect experience and immersion expansion.
Day 3: You do not need to do anything at all on your Farm as it always rains. And now you have a bunch of options: Fish for money, clear more Farmland for Farming, and/or talk with everyone you can find. *And* Pierre is closed so you can't overextend yourself buying and planting Seeds with any money you made yesterday from Fishing.
Day 4: Your first completely unrestricted/unplanned day and many Farmers have at least a modest idea what to do by them. Also some forget they need to water their Crops but that would never be me...
The world, while somewhat small, rarely if ever feels too small and before getting some of the timesavers like Carts, Horse, Totems, as the time taken to get to places really makes it seem like the cozy feel of the town fits well.
The Seasons work very well as sometimes they seem too short and other times too long, but they are great for keeping a sense of time moving and getting accomplishments under your Farmer's suspenders. The Community Center Bundles really put the Seasons front and center as the Crop, Forage, and Fishing ones are all Seasonal, so they propel you to plan your actions (ok and then forget them 'til next year...). Seasonal immersion is well done, with the Seasonal Festivals nicely integrated into the overall timekeeping of the year.
For me, the art style works very well as it allows your imagination to create these characters in your head without dictating too much of their look to you. I kinda wish there were no character portraits and then you had to interpret solely from the tiny sprites but that's restrictive and could reduce immersion for many. A huge positive for portraits is they're a great starting point for the many and varied portrait mods, which are fantastic options. And personally for me, I started playing tile-based games like SDV over 40 years ago so the layout and structure of the art style feels like a natural progression of those art forms. Nostalgic and modern at the same time, and you can mod it so readily like everything else.
