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This Final Fantasy franchise includes many unforgettable settings. From Elfheim in the very first Final Fantasy, Midgar in Final Fantasy 7, to Limsa Lominsa in Final Fantasy 14, every one has secured a special place in fans' hearts, and they love the unique idiosyncrasies that make these worlds so special. However, when it comes to one location that warrants greater praise than the others, it is undoubtedly Balamb Garden from Final Fantasy 8, not just because of its beautiful design, but also for being a absolutely weird school.

An Absolute Blockbuster Moment

First, we must mention the obvious. Balamb Garden morphing into an flying vessel and fleeing from a rocket attack was pure cinema. This institution was not only designed to be a training camp for mercenaries. It is a moving base that enables them to develop new tactics and reposition, based on the requirements of those in control. I readily regard it as one of the most impressive airship concepts in the series, together with Final Fantasy 10's Fahrenheit and several of the Final Fantasy 12 military airships.

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

The First View of a Gloomy Home

As we begin playing Final Fantasy 8 and see Quistis leading Squall out of the medical wing, we get our first look of the location this sullen-looking teenager calls home. A panoramic shot begins from the floor of the school and ascends to focus on the staggering size of the building. Balamb Garden has a design that feels advanced, but also divine. The curvy structures evoke a specifically late ‘90s vision of how the tomorrow would look. Meanwhile, because of the gilded features on the building and the long beams of light coming from the massive glowing halo on top of the school, Balamb Garden looks like a giant angel. It was designed to be a serene place — excessively peaceful for an academy that transforms teenagers into mercenaries.

The Catchy Melody

Complementing the serenity that the aesthetic of Balamb Garden suggests, we have the school’s theme song. One of the most cherished memories I have from being a kid is walking around the central area of Balamb Garden, seeing those fish statues spouting water, and listening to the lullaby-ish theme song. The issue is that it continues playing in your head forever. Whenever it returns to my mind, I’m forced to look up on YouTube for a 3-hour-long “Balamb Garden” song video. The only way to make it stop playing inside my head is to have enough of it.

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

A Intriguing School

Balamb Garden is intriguing as a setting as well as an institution. For starters, it enrolls kids from 5 to 15 years old to turn them into mercenaries, but it looks like a massive church. There are many military schools in RPGs, like in Trails of Cold Steel, but not one look less militaristic than Balamb Garden.

A Contradictory Motto

If you use the Balamb Garden Network using one of the game terminals, you find out that the slogan of the academy is “Work hard, study hard, and play hard.” I’m sorry, but I never have the impression that those teenagers preparing to be mercenaries are “playing hard” — only Zell. But, given that the training center, where students encounter real monsters they can defeat, is the only place in the entire school accessible at any time during the day, perhaps that’s what they mean by “playing.” While combat preparation is the key aspect of a student’s life in Balamb Garden, their food is terrible, since students are eating so many hot dogs that the staff have no other response to say besides “No more hot dogs today.”

Tight Rules

Students are governed by a strict set of rules, which, for one, we should anticipate from a military school, but conversely seems oddly humorous. For example, there’s not a dress code in the school, but they can’t leave their rooms in the nights, except 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 look like it, but Balamb Garden is genuinely concerned about its students’ sex life. The school officially advises 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 weapons and cutting each other's faces like Squall and Seifer were doing in the intro cutscene.)

More Than Just Appearance

Starting with the elegant futuristic design of the building to the paradoxes and debatable practices of the institution, there are countless elements of Balamb Garden to admire. We all like to joke about Squall, but Balamb Garden serves to remind us that there’s greater depth to Final Fantasy 8 than simply surface appeal.