I've recently decided to play through my backlog and I've finally reached Final Fantasy VIII Remastered, and I was reminded why I feel in love so quickly all these years ago when I first booted this game in my PS1: The Balamb Garden.
Many starting areas in RPGs can be a huge hit(FFIX) or a miss(Legend of Legaia, yeah, I don't like Rim Elm, don't @ me) and as a kid it was really important that the game got my attention from the get go, since as a child my attention span was terrible and I had to play RPGs with a dictionary beside me, but FFVIII was something else.
Obligatory play:
Without spoiling much, the Balamb Garden is a military school specialized at training SeeDs(a special mercenary class in the FFVIII world), but oh boy, it's not a basic school map, the place is HUGE.
To get you acquainted with the area, the game makes you show the school to Selphie and explain the main facilities. The level of realism the devs strived for in this game with a more mature aproach, made the Garden feel functional and alive.
There's a set of rules listed on the Study Panel, listening what you can and cannot do in each place, you may even lose points in a future exam if you flash your Gunblade around for fun.
Many starting areas in RPGs can be a huge hit(FFIX) or a miss(Legend of Legaia, yeah, I don't like Rim Elm, don't @ me) and as a kid it was really important that the game got my attention from the get go, since as a child my attention span was terrible and I had to play RPGs with a dictionary beside me, but FFVIII was something else.
Obligatory play:
Without spoiling much, the Balamb Garden is a military school specialized at training SeeDs(a special mercenary class in the FFVIII world), but oh boy, it's not a basic school map, the place is HUGE.
To get you acquainted with the area, the game makes you show the school to Selphie and explain the main facilities. The level of realism the devs strived for in this game with a more mature aproach, made the Garden feel functional and alive.
There's a set of rules listed on the Study Panel, listening what you can and cannot do in each place, you may even lose points in a future exam if you flash your Gunblade around for fun.
