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The FF series features many unforgettable settings. Starting with Elfheim in the original Final Fantasy, Midgar in Final Fantasy 7, to Limsa Lominsa in Final Fantasy 14, each has found a special place in fans' hearts, who admire the unique details that make these areas so special. However, when it comes to one setting that deserves more 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.

An Absolute Cinematic Scene

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

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

A First Look of a Gloomy Home

When we start playing Final Fantasy 8 and watch Quistis escorting Squall out of the infirmary, we get our first view of the location this gloomy-looking teenager calls home. A panoramic shot begins from the ground of the school and rises to focus on the impressive magnitude of the building. Balamb Garden has a design that makes it feel futuristic, but also somehow heavenly. The curvy structures evoke a specifically late ‘90s idea of how the tomorrow would look. Conversely, because of the golden details on the building and the extended trails of light coming from the immense glowing ring on top of the school, Balamb Garden looks like a giant angel. It was built to be a serene place — too peaceful for an institution that turns teenagers into mercenaries.

The Unforgettable Melody

Complementing the calmness that the appearance of Balamb Garden suggests, we have the school’s theme song. One of the dearest recollections I have from my youth is walking around the central area of Balamb Garden, seeing those aquatic statues spraying water, and listening to the lullaby-ish theme song. The issue is that it keeps playing in your head constantly. Whenever it returns to my mind, I’m forced to look up on YouTube for a extended “Balamb Garden” song video. The sole way to make it stop playing inside my head is to listen to it repeatedly of it.

• Soothing melody that sticks in your mind
• Main area with fountain features
• Sentimental associations for many players

The Fascinating Institution

Balamb Garden is intriguing as a setting and also an institution. First, it enrolls kids from five to 15 years old to transform them into mercenaries, but it looks like a enormous church. There are many military schools in RPGs, like in Trails of Cold Steel, but not one look less like a militaristic than Balamb Garden.

The Contradictory Slogan

If you use the Balamb Garden Network via one of the game terminals, you learn that the slogan of the academy 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 area, where students find real monsters they can battle, is the sole place in the entire school available at all hours during the day, perhaps that’s what they mean by “playing.” While combat preparation is the primary part of a student’s life in Balamb Garden, their nutrition is awful, since students are devouring so many frankfurters that the staff have no other response to say except “No more hot dogs today.”

Strict Policies

Students are controlled by a rigid set of rules, which, for one, we would anticipate from a combat school, but on the other seems strangely humorous. For example, there’s no dress code in the school, but they are not allowed to leave their rooms in the nights, except it’s for training. A student may be dismissed if they lag in their curriculum, for violent acts, and for… “sexual promiscuity.” It might not look like it, but Balamb Garden is truly concerned about its students’ relationships. The school officially advises that students “take time to think things through before starting a relationship.” (After all, the real threat of being a student of Balamb Garden is love affairs, not fighting with weapons and slashing each other's faces like Squall and Seifer were doing in the intro cutscene.)

Greater Than Just Good Looks

From the elegant futuristic design of the building to the contradictions and dubious practices of the institution, there are numerous features of Balamb Garden to celebrate. We all like to tease Squall, but Balamb Garden serves to remind us that there’s more to Final Fantasy 8 than only surface appeal.