That Final Fantasy 8 Symbol Warrants Greater Love

The Final Fantasy series boasts countless memorable places. From Elfheim in the original Final Fantasy, Midgar in Final Fantasy 7, to Limsa Lominsa in Final Fantasy 14, every one has earned a special place in players' hearts, and they celebrate the unique details that make these locales so remarkable. However, if one location that deserves greater recognition than the rest, it is undoubtedly Balamb Garden from Final Fantasy 8, not just because of its stunning design, but also for being a absolutely strange school.

An Absolute Cinematic Scene

First, let's mention the obvious. Balamb Garden transforming into an airship and fleeing from a missile attack was pure cinema. This place was not just designed to be a training camp for mercenaries. It is a traveling base that allows them to create new plans and reposition, depending on the requirements of those in charge. I readily consider it as one of the best airship designs 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 more memorable moments in video game history.

The First View of a Brooding Home

When we begin playing Final Fantasy 8 and see Quistis escorting Squall out of the medical wing, we get our initial look of the place this gloomy-looking teenager calls home. A panoramic shot starts from the ground of the school and rises to zoom in on the impressive size of the building. Balamb Garden has a design that makes it feel futuristic, but also somehow angelic. The curvy structures bring to mind a distinctly late ‘90s idea of how the tomorrow would look. Conversely, because of the gilded features on the building and the long beams of light coming from the immense glowing ring on top of the school, Balamb Garden looks like a massive angel. It was created to be a tranquil place — too peaceful for an institution that turns teenagers into mercenaries.

An Catchy Soundtrack

Complementing the tranquility that the aesthetic of Balamb Garden conveys, we have the school’s background music. One of the fondest memories I have from being a kid is strolling around the central area of Balamb Garden, seeing those aquatic statues spraying water, and listening to the gentle theme song. The catch is that it keeps playing in your head forever. Once it comes back to my mind, I’m compelled to search on YouTube for a extended “Balamb Garden” song video. The sole way to get it out of playing inside my head is to have enough of it.

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

A Fascinating School

Balamb Garden is intriguing as a setting and also an establishment. For starters, it enrolls kids from five to fifteen years old to mold them into mercenaries, but it looks like a enormous church. There are many military schools in RPGs, like in Trails of Cold Steel, but none look less like a militaristic than Balamb Garden.

A Paradoxical Motto

If you access the Balamb Garden Network using one of the in-game terminals, you discover that the credo of the school is “Work hard, study hard, and play hard.” Apologies, but I didn't have the feeling that those teenagers training to be mercenaries are “playing hard” — only Zell. However, given that the training center, where students find living monsters they can defeat, is the sole place in the entire school accessible at all hours during the day, perhaps that’s what they mean 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 staff have nothing else to say except “No more hot dogs today.”

Tight Policies

Students are governed by a rigid set of rules, which, for one, we would expect from a military school, but on the other seems strangely funny. First, there’s no dress code in the school, but they are not allowed to leave their rooms in the evenings, except it’s for training. A student can be dismissed if they fall behind in their curriculum, for aggressive acts, and for… “sexual promiscuity.” It might not look like it, but Balamb Garden is genuinely worried about its students’ sex life. The school officially suggests 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 love affairs, not fighting with gunblades and slashing each other's faces like Squall and Seifer were doing in the intro cutscene.)

More Than Only Appearance

Starting with the elegant futuristic design of the building to the contradictions and questionable practices of the institution, there are countless features of Balamb Garden to celebrate. We all like to joke about Squall, but Balamb Garden serves to remind us that there’s more to Final Fantasy 8 than only aesthetics.