🔗 Share this article

This FF franchise includes many memorable settings. Starting with Elfheim in the original Final Fantasy, Midgar in Final Fantasy 7, to Limsa Lominsa in Final Fantasy 14, every one has earned a cherished place in players' hearts, and they celebrate the distinctive details that make these areas so unique. But, when it comes to one setting that deserves more praise than the others, it is definitely Balamb Garden from Final Fantasy 8, not just because of its beautiful design, but additionally for being a incredibly strange school.

An Pure Blockbuster Moment

Before, we must highlight the elephant in the room. Balamb Garden morphing into an airship and escaping from a missile attack was absolute cinema. This institution was not only designed to be a training camp for mercenaries. It is a mobile base that allows them to establish new plans and relocate, depending on the requirements of those in charge. I easily consider it as one of the coolest airship creations in the franchise, together with 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 memorable moments in video game history.

The First Glimpse of a Brooding Home

When we start playing Final Fantasy 8 and watch Quistis leading Squall out of the infirmary, we get our first glimpse of the environment this brooding-looking teenager calls home. A panoramic shot starts from the ground of the school and ascends to zoom in on the impressive magnitude of the building. Balamb Garden has a design that appears advanced, but also angelic. The flowing structures recall a specifically late ‘90s vision of how the future would look. On the other hand, because of the golden details on the building and the long trails of light emanating from the immense glowing halo on top of the school, Balamb Garden looks like a giant angel. It was built to be a serene place — too peaceful for an establishment that transforms teenagers into mercenaries.

An Catchy Theme Song

Matching the serenity that the aesthetic of Balamb Garden portrays, we have the school’s soundtrack. One of the most cherished memories I have from being a kid is walking around the main area of Balamb Garden, seeing those aquatic statues spurting water, and listening to the soothing theme song. The problem is that it continues playing in your head indefinitely. Whenever it comes back to my mind, I’m forced to search on YouTube for a 3-hour-long “Balamb Garden” song video. The only way to make it stop playing inside my head is to listen to it repeatedly of it.

• Gentle tune that sticks in your mind
• Main hub with water features
• Nostalgic associations for many players

The Intriguing Institution

Balamb Garden is fascinating as a setting as well as an organization. For starters, it enrolls kids from five to fifteen years old to turn them into mercenaries, but it appears like a massive 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.

A Contradictory Motto

If you access the Balamb Garden Network via one of the in-game terminals, you learn that the motto of the institution is “Work hard, study hard, and play hard.” Apologies, but I never have the feeling that those teenagers training to be mercenaries are “playing hard” — except for Zell. However, considering that the training area, where students encounter real monsters they can battle, is the only place in the entire school accessible at all hours during the day, perhaps that’s what they intend by “playing.” While training is the most important aspect of a student’s life in Balamb Garden, their diet is awful, since students are consuming so many frankfurters that the personnel have no other response to say except “No more hot dogs today.”

Rigid Rules

Students are governed by a tight set of rules, which, on one hand, we would anticipate from a combat school, but conversely seems oddly humorous. For example, there’s not a dress code in the school, but they are not allowed to leave their dorms in the evenings, except it’s for training. A student can be expelled if they fall behind 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’ relationships. The school formally recommends that students “take time to think things through before starting a relationship.” (After all, the true threat of being a student of Balamb Garden is romantic relationships, not battling with weapons and slashing each other's faces like Squall and Seifer were doing in the intro cutscene.)

More Than Only Aesthetics

Starting with the delicate advanced design of the building to the contradictions and questionable actions of the academy, there are countless elements of Balamb Garden to celebrate. 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.