In an interview posted today, Taku Murata, the general manager of Crystal Tools, spoke about the limitations and implications of the toolset for Square-Enix. For those of you who are not incredibly obnoxious Square fanboys, you might not recall that Crystal Tools née White Engine is part of an initiative by Square-Enix to streamline development across different platforms.
Now I can’t say that I’m obsessed with everything Square-Enix does, but I can say that any Square-Enix information that manages to filter through to America from across the pond causes me to salivate in a Pavlovian fashion. As someone who has spent far too many hours collecting some variety of crystal to save the world from some variety of Armageddon, I found Murata’s explanation for the engine name to be amusing:
Actually, the initial name that we used — White Engine — we just used it as like a code name. But in September of 2007, version 1.0 was released. At the time, we were trying to figure out the official name for that, and we wanted to come up with something that would reflect the company. “Crystal” is something that we wanted to use, because it many different colors, so we wanted to use that meaning too. That also sounds like our company too, Crystal.
I’m willing to forgive the faulty English, but this would have been a great opportunity for Murata to explain Square’s damned obsession with crystals. I can only imagine that their offices are decorated like some New Age medicine shop with crystals dangling from twine. Also, Matoya sitting in a corner cackling over a bubbling cauldron. Crystals EVERYWHERE. And where there aren’t crystals, orbs MADE of crystal.
But don’t think that all of Square-Enix’s games are going to be using the same engine. The company isn’t limiting itself to the Crystal Tools, oh, no:
We used the Unreal Engine for The Last Remnant because we had a particular Western — European and American — market in mind. I believe that the game engine reflected the culture and philosophy of the market, and the creator.
Actually, I wouldn’t say that we would use Crystal Tools for everything. To create Final Fantasy, yes, Crystal Tools is ideal and it’s good. But for other titles, we could use other engines as well. In that sense, it’s always an option to use another method. Also, I don’t mean that the Crystal Tools can only create Final Fantasy.
So, for now, Crystal Tools is the way to build Final Fantasy games, but don’t let that confuse you. It’s useful for other games too. Unnamed games. Games yet to be determined.
But I kid. Any tool, engine, or magic that somehow cuts down on development time for Final Fantasy games deserves my praise and obsession.
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