Well, okay, fair enough - they weren't actual mazes, but they still required you to have knowledge of how to turn to the right or the left, which you didn't have to do in most maps for either X (because the maps were the definition of linear for the most part) or XII (because they were so open, you just faced the direction of where you wanted to go and then ran forward).

Either way, VII is an ideal map grouping for me. VIII was good enough. But to have either open space or straight line is just... urgh.