[Vic_Viper]

Actually Square stated since the beggining that the game was supposed to be played by people talking both english and japanese. And they also said the english version of the game was developed since the beggining at same time the japanese version. I think the reason for all this was a trick from Sony gain control over Squaresoft assets delaying the NA release of the HDD and dificulting the sales of the japanese HDDs. This resulted in a late development of the MS Windows version in a attempt to escape from the dependency on Sony hardware. Too bad Square was still having financial problems due to the FF movie fiasco.

That means this unique market situation made the NA release delay a whole year even thought it was ready since the beggining.

This is a supposition and should NOT be taken seriously.