Did the Squall Voice Actor finish his lines?
No. In fact, he has the most lines left to do.
Will there be some sort of effect over Squalls voice acting in regards to his internal thoughts? I.e will we be able to "hear" that they are thoughts?
Yes. His inner dialogue will be echo-ey.
I don't mean to tell you how to do your "job" but maybe it would be worth recruiting a single voice actor at a time and doing all their lines in isolation?
My free time isn't an issue. Every actor who has finished recording (or at least gotten to the 99% point) did it in just a few months, I was working with all of them concurrently. The problem is that sometimes it's hard for the actors to find a time that's convenient for them. (Also, now that I'm employed, I'm unavailable for 9 hours each weekday).
E.g. hiring an actor for Squall - recording all his lines intensively for 3 months and integrating into the game.
Nobody is making any money off this. I intend to keep it that way.
Finally, if things did, unfortunately, go wrong and the mod could not be finished - is it in such a state that everything you have done thus far could be released?
As far as the scripting, yes. Check the Hacktuar thread for details on that. As far as voices go, since only about 1/3 of the voices are working, I feel it would detract from your play experience, rather than enhance it. You would be playing what clearly feels like an unfinished project. I won't release any voice files until the project is at least 95% voiced, and that would only be for prerelease testing.
when I replay the game with your mod in it I will have to honour your efforts and rename one of the characters Shard (maybe Selphie? She is the optimistic one after all...).
In FF8 you can only name Squall, Rinoa, the dog, and the GFs. Unfortunately this is not a feature I can change (I tried
).
When this releases, you can show your support by having Square hire me and my actors to voice the English FF8 remake that, if trends continue, they will make for 2019.