At an event held at the Metreon in San Francisco, SqareSoft unveiled a nearly complete build of the North America version of its upcoming PlayStation 2 RPG Final Fantasy X. We played several sections in the game, which had all of the English voice over and text already in. As reported, James Arnold Taylor, who provided the voice of Walla in the Fox animated show Futurama, is the voice of the game's lead character Tidus, while Hedy Burress, who appeared in the television sitcom Boston Common, will bring life to Yuna in her first voice-over assignment. Most of the voices used in the game, generally fit the characters to a tee--the voices for Rikku and Auron are particularly good. However, tidus' voice, for example, sounds a bit shrill at first, but it must be considered that he's only 17-years-old in the game. And the voice samples provided by Taylor do match his teenage naivety and bravado. The general lip-synching is a bit off, but that can be expected, considering that the original facial animations were synched to the Japanese voice-overs.

　　At the event, SquareSoft officially confirmed that Final Fantasy X will not include the alternate Japanese voice track, so players will only have access to the English voices and subtitles. Aside from the English voices, judging from the sections of the game shown, it seems that the story, gameplay, and general look of the game will remain identical to the Japanese version for the game's North American release.

　　Final Fantasy X is currently on schedule to be released in January for the North American PS2. GameSpot will have more in the coming weeks.