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The Final Fantasy series boasts countless iconic places. Starting with Elfheim in the original Final Fantasy, Midgar in Final Fantasy 7, all the way to Limsa Lominsa in Final Fantasy 14, each has secured a special place in players' hearts, and they celebrate the distinctive idiosyncrasies that make these locales so remarkable. But, if one location that deserves greater attention than the rest, it is undoubtedly Balamb Garden from Final Fantasy 8, not just because of its beautiful design, but additionally for being a absolutely strange school.

An Pure Cinematic Reveal

Before, let's mention the elephant in the room. Balamb Garden morphing into an airship and escaping from a missile attack was absolute cinema. This location was not only designed to be a training camp for mercenaries. It is a mobile base that permits them to create new tactics and relocate, based on the needs of those in control. Many readily consider it as one of the most impressive airship concepts in the franchise, along with Final Fantasy 10's Fahrenheit and some of the Final Fantasy 12 military airships.

The change of Balamb Garden into an airship remains one of the most iconic moments in video game history.

The First View of a Brooding Home

As we begin playing Final Fantasy 8 and watch Quistis leading Squall out of the infirmary, we get our initial view of the place this sullen-looking teenager calls home. A panoramic shot starts 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 heavenly. The rounded structures recall a specifically late ‘90s idea of how the future would look. Meanwhile, because of the golden accents on the building and the long trails of light emanating from the enormous glowing halo on top of the school, Balamb Garden evokes a giant angel. It was built to be a serene place — excessively peaceful for an establishment that turns teenagers into mercenaries.

The Catchy Melody

Matching the serenity that the design of Balamb Garden suggests, we have the school’s theme song. One of the fondest memories I have from my youth is strolling around the central area of Balamb Garden, watching those aquatic statues spraying water, and hearing to the gentle theme song. The issue is that it continues playing in your head forever. 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.

• Lullaby tune that lingers in your mind
• Main hub with fountain features
• Sentimental memories for many players

The Intriguing Academy

Balamb Garden is fascinating as a setting as well as an organization. First, it enrolls kids from 5 to 15 years old to mold them into mercenaries, but it appears like a massive church. There are many military schools in RPGs, like in Trails of Cold Steel, but none look less like a militaristic than Balamb Garden.

The Ironic Slogan

When you use the Balamb Garden Network via 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 never have the sense that those teenagers training to be mercenaries are “playing hard” — except for Zell. But, given that the training center, where students encounter living monsters they can battle, is the only place in the whole school accessible at any time during the day, maybe that’s what they mean by “playing.” While training is the most important part of a student’s life in Balamb Garden, their food is terrible, since students are eating so many frankfurters that the staff have nothing else to say except “No more hot dogs today.”

Strict Policies

Students are governed by a strict set of rules, which, for one, we would expect from a combat school, but on the other seems strangely funny. For example, there’s no dress code in the school, but they can’t leave their rooms in the nights, except it’s for training. A student can 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 truly worried about its students’ romantic activities. 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 battling with gunblades and slashing each other's faces like Squall and Seifer were doing in the intro cutscene.)

Greater Than Only Aesthetics

Starting with the elegant advanced design of the building to the contradictions and dubious actions of the institution, there are countless elements of Balamb Garden to admire. Many of us like to joke about Squall, but Balamb Garden reminds us that there’s more to Final Fantasy 8 than simply surface appeal.