At the end of E3 2006 gamers were swimming in announcements for high profile titles. From Gears of War to The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, amazing games were everywhere and fans were frothing at the mouth to get a hold on them.

One title that left bruises on the jaws of role-playing game fans everywhere was the debut of Final Fantasy XIII which showed off the amazing visuals and elaborate world of the latest in the series. The short video left fans wanting to know more about whom the mysterious woman only known as Lightning is and what her role in the game would be.

Taku Marata, general manager for Square’s R&D, spoke at GDC 2008 about the evolution of design toolset Crystal Tools stating that the evolution of the software began originally with Final Fantasy Tactics for the Playstation in 1997, and then used later in 2000’s Vagrant Story.

In the past Square-Enix has built all of its engines from the ground up, but future titles will be created using its own proprietary software known as Crystal Tools. One of the main aspects of the engine is its ability to render photorealistic CGI in real-time.

Tetsuya Nomura, character designer for FFXIII, has commented that the engine will be able to “recreate battle scenes reminiscent of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.” Square also announced that Crystal Tools will feature a full suite of authoring tools and runtime libraries for PS3, 360, PC and even Wii, although support for Nintendo’s flagship is still in development.

While the thirteenth game in the epic series is still far off, Nomura did indicate that Crystal Tools will allow the development of games to be shortened allowing for beautiful games to arrive sooner than you think.

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