Final Fantasy VIII has a bit of a reputation, doesn’t it? The super popular RPG franchise hasn’t always hit the bullseye with critics and fans, and this is one of the most controversial installments of all. With its unique mechanics, mysterious story, and protagonist surlier than Oscar the Grouch with a hangover, Final Fantasy VIII certainly has its share of detractors.
There are a lot of strange things happening here. Take the game’s most iconic location, the sprawling military academy Balamb Garden. The Garden has some super strict rules that can seem bizarre to outsiders, and we’ve gathered some of the strangest from the game’s lore (and in-game Study Panel).
10 The Training Center In General
Now, we completely understand that the Garden’s purpose is to train up youngsters and shape them into an elite mercenary force. With that in mind, it makes perfect sense that after-hours work would consist less of extra math classes and more of bashing slathering monsters in the squishy bits with a sharp, angry sword.
With that in mind, though, the Training Center still horrifies us as a concept. The fact that it’s the only facility students are allowed in past curfew, and is home to great, hideous beasts like T-Rexaur (which is a darn T-Rex, if you didn’t pick up on that), doesn’t exactly sit right with us. It’s like Albus Dumbledore sending children into the Forbidden Forest to serve detention.
9 The First Rule Of Card Club Is: You Do Not Talk About Card Club
If you’re a fan of Final Fantasy VIII’s Triple Triad mini-game, there are two things you’ll have learned: accidentally spreading the Random rule is just about the worst thing you could possibly do in your life, and the C.C. Group at Balamb Garden have some excellent cards.
You wouldn’t really know it, though. The Card Club is an elite band of students and staff members who play the game, operating on a hierarchy. You can’t challenge the next highest-ranked member until you’ve defeated the one below them, and you have to search the Garden to find each member. If you’re a player who pays little attention to NPCs, you might not even have known his group existed! Why are they so secretive?
8 T-Boards Are Forbidden
When Squall’s party graduate and are assigned their first SeeD job (the fateful Timber mission where Squall first meets Rinoa), Zell arrives at the front gate in spectacular, confident fashion: riding his T-Board, a sort of hover-skateboard. The Garden Faculty are unimpressed by Zell’s futuristic impersonation of Avril Lavigne’s beloved Sk8er Boi, though, and immediately confiscate the board.
Of course, flying skateboards sound completely and utterly beyond dangerous (and awesome), so that’s probably fine. As Zell complains, though, they could be super useful on a SeeD mission, and trained operatives could well find them an asset.
7 No Eating In The Library
At some point or another during our school days, we probably all ran afoul of a teacher or librarian who were just a little too serious about the rules. One that they take the most seriously, perhaps, is the infamous ‘no eating/talking in the library,’ which is probably universal among every school.
On that level, it’s not remotely unusual that Balamb Garden has this regulation too. It’s a place of good old-fashioned education as well as sword-swinging and fireball-throwing, after all. It’s just that, in a world where extra-curricular battles against very real, very powerful monsters are a thing, ‘no eating in the library’ seems hilariously anachronistic.
6 Take The Time To Think Things Through Before Starting A Relationship
Ah, yes. Relationships. If there’s something else we remember not-so-fondly from our schooldays, it’s the relationships that went south. The teenage heartache. The break-ups, the tears and the cheaters.
Relationships are always a minefield in our school years (and don’t really get any easier as we get older), so it’s nice to see Balamb Garden throwing in a cute little rule to try and help students out with that. As with the whole library issue, though, these sorts of mundane issues don’t really seem to fit in with the whole Balamb Garden vibe.
5 At Age 20, All Students Are Released, Whether They’ve Graduated Or Not
Every Balamb Garden student’s situation is different. Some of them join the academy as young as five years old and start their Garden career as junior classmen. Squall himself was aged around six when he was brought to the Garden.
It doesn’t matter how old you are when you begin your education here, because you know when you’ll end it: at the age of twenty. This is when all students must leave, regardless of the status of their education. SeeDs are permitted to stay beyond this age, providing that they completed their education before turning twenty. Surely they wouldn’t want to lose promising fighters?
4 Actually Listen To Seifer
Now, if any of the staff had actually spent any real time in Seifer Almasy’s company, they’d probably have noticed that he’s not somebody they should entrust with responsibility over anything more difficult than a box of cereal. He’s a snarky, arrogant bully, who spent his time on Squall’s official mission disobeying orders and calling Zell “chicken-wuss.”
Whatever he became later in the game, he starts as a member of the Disciplinary Committee, a student body intended to uphold the Garden’s rules. How exactly that worked out, we don’t quite understand.
3 Don’t Question The Use Of Guardian Forces
In Final Fantasy VIII, iconic summon monsters like Shiva aren’t spells you can simply spam and blast your way through the game. They’re more like equipment, to be Junctioned to your characters, bond with them and bestow a huge variety of abilities on them.
Later in the game, we learn that this process can impair the memory of those who Junction GF (they ‘reside’ in the same section of the brain where memories are stored, or however the rather forgettable Irvine Kinneas puts it). The Garden Faculty won’t hear a word against GF use, though. We’re given two Guardian Forces right from the very beginning of the game, and a staff member warns Squall and the new SeeDs to disregard any anti-GF talk they might hear from other organizations. It seems a little reckless to us.
2 Go And Battle Ifrit… As A Nice, Easy Warm-Up
As Final Fantasy fans will know, Ifrit is… well, a huge darn fiery beast that you wouldn’t want to bring home to meet your mom, however cool she happens to be about the demons you date. He’s not a guy to be trifled with, that’s for darn sure.
Final Fantasy VIII doesn’t have time for any nonsense like series conventions, though. In this game, Ifrit dwells in the Fire Cavern just outside Balamb Garden’s original location, and he’s fought as a handy little prerequisite before the SeeD exam itself.
1 Report Any Unusual Bugs Found In The Garden
The disciplinary committee, as we’ve seen, have a fair amount of influence on the Garden’s regulations and punishments for breaking them. Seifer and his cronies Fujin and Raijin make up the committee, and one of the latter’s hobbies seems to have inspired what is perhaps Balamb Garden’s most unusual regulation of all: any student who spots an unusual bug in the Garden must report it immediately.
Why is this a thing? Well, one of Raijin’s favorite pastimes is collecting insects. It looks as though he’s just added that in so he doesn’t miss out on anything rare for his collection.