everywhere aside from the main game
Really? I never really saw her any differently. She never struck me as some damsel and always struck me as someone who looks at the likes of Zack and Cloud as these guys she needs to take care of, not vice versa. The closest I recall her to being someone "in need" is when she asked Cloud to be her bodyguard.
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
She's basically the Virgin Mary in Advent Children
When she told all those Your Mother jokes?
Wait, wait, I just remembered I've seen it more in the fandubs than I have in the real dialogue. Just read the English script though and it doesn't seem anything outlandish for Obi Wan ghost style stuff. She only has like ten lines anyway.
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
Those moments where you truly feel like your moving on to a new area. The sense of going on a grand journey.
When playing the original back in the day, you couldn't go back to certain areas immediately, if at all. Such as Midgar and the Chocobo Farm after passing the Midgar Zolom (well, you're not supposed to anyway). For me at least, I thought this helped give the journey significance and even urgency.
For example, the point when you leave Midgar for the first time and the party is pretty nervous of what's to come. If we can just waltz straight back into Midgar afterwards then these kind of character moments are kind of lost.
With the continuing shift to more open world design and companies not really wanting to spend time and money developing assets that are only used once I wonder how this will play out.
If anything, SE have no problem with that, as FFXIII showed.
Bow before the mighty Javoo!