Haven't played the second game yet, but you also needed port crystals, which were limited and relatively scarce, for fast travel in the first game, and it took a long time to get the option in the first place. So it sounds exactly the same, only now they've made them available through microtransactions which is never a good look.
I rarely, if ever used fast travel in the first game. Yes, it meant having to do long treks from time to time, but I kinda liked it as it meant I had to plan certain side quests more carefully, especially if there was a risk of ending up in the middle of the wilds when night falls. It might sound like it's just removing features that have become genre conventions, but it's part of the adventure really.