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This Final Fantasy series boasts numerous unforgettable locations. From Elfheim in the very first Final Fantasy, Midgar in Final Fantasy 7, all the way to Limsa Lominsa in Final Fantasy 14, each has secured a cherished place in fans' hearts, and they love the unique details that make these locales so unique. However, when it comes to one place that warrants greater recognition than the rest, it is certainly Balamb Garden from Final Fantasy 8, not only because of its elegant design, but additionally for being a truly strange school.

The Absolute Blockbuster Reveal

First, we must mention the obvious. Balamb Garden turning into an flying vessel and escaping from a rocket attack was pure cinema. This location was not only designed to be a training camp for mercenaries. It is a traveling base that permits them to create new tactics and reposition, based on the requirements of those in command. Many readily consider it as one of the coolest airship concepts 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 most unforgettable moments in video game history.

The Initial Look of a Brooding Sanctuary

When we start playing Final Fantasy 8 and watch Quistis leading Squall out of the infirmary, we get our first look of the place this gloomy-looking teenager calls home. A panoramic shot starts from the floor of the school and rises to focus on the staggering magnitude of the building. Balamb Garden has a design that appears advanced, but also somehow heavenly. The rounded structures evoke a specifically late ‘90s concept of how the future would look. Conversely, because of the golden details on the building and the long beams of light coming from the immense glowing ring on top of the school, Balamb Garden resembles a massive angel. It was built to be a tranquil place — excessively peaceful for an academy that transforms teenagers into mercenaries.

An Memorable Theme Song

Complementing the tranquility that the appearance of Balamb Garden conveys, we have the school’s background music. One of the dearest recollections I have from being a kid is walking around the central area of Balamb Garden, watching those fish statues spraying water, and listening to the gentle theme song. The issue is that it continues playing in your head constantly. Whenever it returns to my mind, I’m forced to search on YouTube for a 3-hour-long “Balamb Garden” song video. The sole way to make it stop playing inside my head is to overdose of it.

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

A Fascinating School

Balamb Garden is fascinating as a setting and also an institution. First, it accepts kids from 5 to fifteen years old to transform them into mercenaries, but it appears like a giant church. There are numerous military schools in RPGs, like in Trails of Cold Steel, but none look less militaristic than Balamb Garden.

A Paradoxical Slogan

When you use the Balamb Garden Network using one of the in-game terminals, you discover that the motto of the school is “Work hard, study hard, and play hard.” I’m sorry, but I never have the sense that those teenagers training to be mercenaries are “playing hard” — only Zell. However, given that the training center, where students encounter living monsters they can defeat, is the only place in the whole school available at any time during the day, maybe that’s what they intend by “playing.” While combat preparation is the primary part of a student’s life in Balamb Garden, their nutrition is terrible, since students are consuming so many hot dogs that the staff have no other response to say besides “No more hot dogs today.”

Rigid Rules

Students are controlled by a tight set of rules, which, for one, we would anticipate from a combat school, but conversely seems weirdly humorous. First, there’s not a dress code in the school, but they can’t leave their rooms in the evenings, unless it’s for training. A student can be dismissed if they lag in their curriculum, for aggressive acts, and for… “sexual promiscuity.” It might not seem like it, but Balamb Garden is really worried about its students’ romantic activities. The school officially recommends that students “take time to think things through before starting a relationship.” (After all, the real risk of being a student of Balamb Garden is romantic relationships, not fighting with weapons and cutting each other's faces like Squall and Seifer were doing in the opening cutscene.)

Greater Than Only Aesthetics

From the refined advanced design of the building to the contradictions and questionable actions of the institution, there are many aspects of Balamb Garden to appreciate. Many of us like to tease Squall, but Balamb Garden serves to remind us that there’s greater depth to Final Fantasy 8 than simply aesthetics.