Moogle image courtesy of Square Enix

I’ve been in love with moogles since I first saw them in Final Fantasy 3. Back in those 8-bit days you could only imagine how cute those little, white puffballs were. From what you could see, they looked like cats with a giant red nose and bat wings. Luckily, both graphic cards and the moogle species have evolved since then.

The look of moogles has changed greatly from FF3 to FF12. Somewhere between FF5 and FF6 they grew an antenna with a red ball on top, which gave them awesome dances moves, magical abilities or both (it’s never fully be explained what the antenna does or why moogles are such good dancers). Later in the FF series, they started looking a bit more human (or rabbit-like depending on who you ask) and wore clothing. And for some reason, in the Crystal Chronicles faction of Final Fantasy, moogles look like Kirby, but we’re just going to brush that off by saying they’re non-canon games.

There was only one time you were able to play as a moogle, in FF6. Her name was Mog and she had the classic fat cat with bat wings look. She wasn’t the best fighter and you couldn’t control her once she started her special dance ability, but she was always on my team.

Since FF3 a moogle of some kind has appeared in every Final Fantasy game except FF4, which is forgivable since Square Enix probably didn’t know what an amazing character/species they had. But internet rumors — terrible, terrible internet rumors — are suggesting that we won’t see moogles of any kind in FF13. I can only hope that these rumors are false and we’ll get to see Mog or some other moogle on the latest generation of graphic cards.

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