🔗 Share this article That FF8 Icon Warrants More Love The Final Fantasy series features numerous unforgettable locations. Starting with Elfheim in the very first Final Fantasy, Midgar in Final Fantasy 7, to Limsa Lominsa in Final Fantasy 14, each has found a cherished place in players' hearts, and they love the distinctive quirks that make these worlds so unique. However, when it comes to one location that warrants greater praise than the rest, it is definitely Balamb Garden from Final Fantasy 8, not just because of its elegant design, but additionally for being a truly bizarre school. An Pure Cinematic Scene Before, we must highlight the elephant in the room. Balamb Garden turning into an flying vessel and escaping from a rocket attack was absolute cinema. This place was not just intended to be a training camp for mercenaries. It is a traveling base that enables them to create new strategies and reposition, depending on the requirements of those in command. I easily regard it as one of the coolest airship creations in the series, together with Final Fantasy 10's Fahrenheit and several of the Final Fantasy 12 military airships. This change of Balamb Garden into an airship remains one of the more unforgettable moments in video game history. The Initial View of a Gloomy Sanctuary When we start playing Final Fantasy 8 and see Quistis leading Squall out of the infirmary, we get our initial look of the location this sullen-looking teenager calls home. A panoramic shot begins from the ground of the school and ascends to focus on the impressive size of the building. Balamb Garden has a design that makes it feel futuristic, but also somehow divine. The flowing structures evoke a distinctly late ‘90s concept of how the future would look. Meanwhile, because of the golden features on the building and the long trails of light coming from the enormous glowing halo on top of the school, Balamb Garden looks like a giant angel. It was designed to be a serene place — excessively peaceful for an academy that turns teenagers into mercenaries. The Catchy Theme Song Complementing the tranquility that the appearance of Balamb Garden suggests, we have the school’s soundtrack. One of the dearest recollections I have from being a kid is walking around the central area of Balamb Garden, watching those fish statues spouting water, and listening to the lullaby-ish theme song. The issue is that it continues playing in your head indefinitely. Once it comes back to my mind, I’m compelled to look up on YouTube for a extended “Balamb Garden” song video. The sole way to end playing inside my head is to overdose of it. Gentle melody that sticks in your mind Main area with water features Sentimental feelings for countless players The Intriguing Institution Balamb Garden is compelling as a location and also an institution. For starters, it accepts kids from 5 to 15 years old to transform them into mercenaries, but it looks like a enormous church. There are a lot of military schools in RPGs, like in Trails of Cold Steel, but none look less militaristic than Balamb Garden. The Ironic Philosophy When you use the Balamb Garden Network using one of the in-game terminals, you discover that the motto of the institution is “Work hard, study hard, and play hard.” I’m sorry, but I never have the impression that those teenagers preparing to be mercenaries are “playing hard” — except for Zell. However, given that the facility, where students encounter real monsters they can battle, is the sole place in the entire school accessible at any time during the day, perhaps that’s what they intend by “playing.” While training is the most important part of a student’s life in Balamb Garden, their nutrition is awful, since students are eating so many frankfurters that the faculty have nothing else to say except “No more hot dogs today.” Tight Regulations Students are controlled by a strict set of rules, which, for one, we would anticipate from a military school, but conversely seems strangely funny. First, there’s no dress code in the school, but they are not allowed to leave their dorms in the nights, unless it’s for training. A student may be expelled if they lag in their curriculum, for violent acts, and for… “sexual promiscuity.” It might not look like it, but Balamb Garden is really worried about its students’ relationships. The school formally recommends that students “take time to think things through before starting a relationship.” (After all, the true danger of being a student of Balamb Garden is love affairs, not fighting with gunblades and slashing each other's faces like Squall and Seifer were doing in the intro cutscene.) More Than Only Good Looks From the delicate advanced design of the building to the paradoxes and questionable decisions of the institution, there are many features of Balamb Garden to admire. Many of us like to joke about Squall, but Balamb Garden serves to remind us that there’s more to Final Fantasy 8 than simply aesthetics.