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This FF franchise features numerous 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 secured a cherished place in players' hearts, who admire the distinctive idiosyncrasies that make these areas so special. However, if one location that deserves greater attention than the rest, it is certainly Balamb Garden from Final Fantasy 8, not only because of its elegant design, but also for being a truly strange school.

The Absolute Movie Scene

Before, we must address the elephant in the room. Balamb Garden transforming into an airship and fleeing from a missile attack was absolute cinema. This place was not just designed to be a training camp for mercenaries. It is a mobile base that enables them to develop new plans and move, depending on the requirements of those in charge. Many easily consider it as one of the coolest airship designs in the series, alongside Final Fantasy 10's Fahrenheit and several of the Final Fantasy 12 military airships.

The transformation of Balamb Garden into an airship remains one of the more unforgettable moments in video game history.

A Initial View of a Brooding Home

As we begin playing Final Fantasy 8 and watch Quistis escorting Squall out of the medical wing, we get our first glimpse of the place this brooding-looking teenager calls home. A panoramic shot begins from the ground of the school and rises to zoom in on the impressive magnitude of the building. Balamb Garden has a design that appears advanced, but also somehow divine. The curvy structures recall a distinctly late ‘90s concept of how the future would look. Conversely, because of the golden details on the building and the long trails of light coming from the massive glowing ring on top of the school, Balamb Garden looks like a massive angel. It was built to be a serene place — excessively peaceful for an establishment that transforms teenagers into mercenaries.

An Unforgettable Theme Song

Complementing the serenity that the aesthetic of Balamb Garden portrays, we have the school’s soundtrack. One of the dearest recollections I have from childhood is strolling around the central area of Balamb Garden, watching those aquatic statues spurting water, and hearing to the gentle theme song. The catch is that it keeps playing in your head forever. Once it returns to my mind, I’m forced to look up on YouTube for a 3-hour-long “Balamb Garden” song video. The sole way to make it stop playing inside my head is to have enough of it.

• Gentle tune that remains in your mind
• Main area with water features
• Nostalgic memories for countless players

A Fascinating School

Balamb Garden is fascinating as a setting as well as an establishment. For starters, it accepts kids from 5 to fifteen years old to turn them into mercenaries, but it looks like a enormous church. There are a lot of military schools in RPGs, like in Trails of Cold Steel, but none look less like a militaristic than Balamb Garden.

A Ironic Slogan

When you use the Balamb Garden Network using 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 feeling that those teenagers training to be mercenaries are “playing hard” — except for Zell. However, considering that the training area, where students find living monsters they can kill, is the only place in the whole school accessible at any time during the day, maybe that’s what they intend by “playing.” While training is the key part of a student’s life in Balamb Garden, their food is terrible, since students are eating so many frankfurters that the faculty have nothing else to say besides “No more hot dogs today.”

Rigid Rules

Students are governed by a tight set of rules, which, on one hand, we should expect from a military school, but on the other seems weirdly funny. First, there’s not a dress code in the school, but they can’t leave their dorms in the nights, unless it’s for training. A student can be dismissed if they fall behind in their curriculum, for aggressive acts, and for… “sexual promiscuity.” It may not seem like it, but Balamb Garden is genuinely worried about its students’ relationships. The school officially suggests 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 opening cutscene.)

More Than Only Appearance

Starting with the refined advanced design of the building to the paradoxes and dubious actions of the institution, there are countless aspects of Balamb Garden to admire. We all like to joke about Squall, but Balamb Garden reminds us that there’s greater depth to Final Fantasy 8 than only good looks.