It wasn't prerelease, not sure where that rumor started. But like the translator(s), the porters had very little time, resources, and communication with Square, so they had to wing a lot of stuff when adapting code and assets

Certainly not a net positive for Square Enix, whose official port would now be massively outclassed, but a big net positive for players and the PC modding community!

Yeah I'm smoked

It's just vanilla version for now. People are evidently close to decompiling the PS1 version so Arch mode may follow in the future

I couldn't remember if this factors into a puzzle or something so I took a picture but I think its just a gag

I posited originally that this was just a goof that fell through all the cracks. The English team can be liberal with the translations (almost always to good effect) but I doubt that's what happened here. This was the best fix they could make without heavy changes to facial cap and scene timing