Can adding too much information make a design harder to understand?

Had this happen while reviewing a design recently. The more information we added, the more complete it seemed to become. But after a point, it was actually harder to understand what the main idea was. There were too many materials, objects, labels, and small decisions competing for attention. Removing a few things made the design feel much clearer without changing the actual concept. How do you decide what information is useful and what is just adding noise?