🔗 Share this article

The FF franchise boasts many iconic places. Starting with Elfheim in the original Final Fantasy, Midgar in Final Fantasy 7, to Limsa Lominsa in Final Fantasy 14, each has found a cherished place in fans' hearts, and they love the distinctive quirks that make these worlds so remarkable. However, if one location that deserves greater attention than the others, it is certainly Balamb Garden from Final Fantasy 8, not just because of its stunning design, but additionally for being a truly bizarre school.

The Pure Movie Scene

Before, let's address the obvious. Balamb Garden turning into an airship and fleeing from a rocket attack was absolute cinema. This place was not only intended to be a training camp for mercenaries. It is a moving base that permits them to create new tactics and move, based on the demands of those in control. Many easily regard it as one of the best airship concepts in the series, alongside Final Fantasy 10's Fahrenheit and several of the Final Fantasy 12 military airships.

This conversion of Balamb Garden into an airship remains one of the most unforgettable moments in gaming history.

A First View of a Gloomy Sanctuary

When we begin playing Final Fantasy 8 and see Quistis leading Squall out of the infirmary, we get our initial look of the environment this sullen-looking teenager calls home. A panoramic shot begins from the floor of the school and ascends to focus on the awe-inspiring scale of the building. Balamb Garden has a design that makes it feel advanced, but also somehow angelic. The rounded structures recall a distinctly late ‘90s idea of how the future would look. On the other hand, because of the gilded details on the building and the long trails of light emanating from the enormous glowing ring on top of the school, Balamb Garden looks like a massive angel. It was designed to be a tranquil place — excessively peaceful for an institution that transforms teenagers into mercenaries.

An Catchy Theme Song

Matching the calmness that the aesthetic of Balamb Garden suggests, we have the school’s soundtrack. One of the most cherished recollections I have from childhood is walking around the main area of Balamb Garden, watching those fish statues spurting water, and listening to the gentle theme song. The issue is that it keeps playing in your head constantly. Once it returns to my mind, I’m compelled to search on YouTube for a 3-hour-long “Balamb Garden” song video. The sole way to end playing inside my head is to overdose of it.

• Gentle music that lingers in your mind
• Central courtyard with fountain features
• Nostalgic associations for countless players

The Compelling Academy

Balamb Garden is fascinating as a location and also an establishment. For starters, it accepts kids from five to fifteen years old to turn 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 like a militaristic than Balamb Garden.

A Paradoxical Slogan

When you access the Balamb Garden Network using one of the game terminals, you find out that the slogan of the school is “Work hard, study hard, and play hard.” Apologies, but I didn't have the feeling that those teenagers training to be mercenaries are “playing hard” — except for Zell. However, considering that the training center, where students find real monsters they can kill, is the sole place in the whole school available at all hours during the day, maybe that’s what they mean by “playing.” While training is the primary part of a student’s life in Balamb Garden, their nutrition is poor, since students are devouring so many hot dogs that the personnel have no other response to say besides “No more hot dogs today.”

Strict Policies

Students are governed by a strict set of rules, which, for one, we would anticipate from a military school, but on the other seems weirdly humorous. First, there’s not a dress code in the school, but they can’t leave their dorms in the evenings, unless it’s for training. A student can be expelled if they fall behind in their studies, for aggressive acts, and for… “sexual promiscuity.” It might not seem like it, but Balamb Garden is genuinely worried about its students’ relationships. The school officially suggests 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 romantic relationships, not battling with gunblades and slashing each other's faces like Squall and Seifer were doing in the intro cutscene.)

Greater Than Just Appearance

Starting with the elegant advanced design of the building to the contradictions and debatable practices of the institution, there are numerous elements of Balamb Garden to appreciate. We all like to joke about Squall, but Balamb Garden reminds us that there’s greater depth to Final Fantasy 8 than just aesthetics.