Remember this weird-ass commercial?
KUPO!
Chance: 1%
BLAH BLAH BLAH STINGY SQUARE BLAH BLAH MASCOT BLAH BLAH-okay im gonna be serious here.
Moogles are undeniably a very prominent species in the Final Fantasy Series, beign introduced in Final Fantasy 3 (not the SNES game which is actually 6, though they made their international debut there) and while they were absent in 4, almost every installment of the franchise features them in some capacity. 6 notably has the first ever playable Moogle party member, Mog, and is one of the most memorable characters of the party despite beign completely optional, thanks to Squaresoft America pushing him as a major selling point to the game, as if he was a mascot. I don't know how much 6 affected the reputation of the Moogles, but games after seemed to only push them further, even when they were not playable.
Almost all Square related media features them. They appear in Kingdom Hearts as shopkeppers, even in Dream Drop Distance which is devoid of any other FF character. There's also Dissidia, Record Keeper, world of Final Fantasy, and so on and so forth. They even crossed over with Mario on some sport games alongside the Black Mage and White Mage.
So why is the score so low if the Moogles are so prominent and generic species are on the table with the likes of Piranha Plant? Simply put, i don't think NIntendo or Square are interesed in using these types of characters for Smash, they may not see it fit. Yes, Moggles appear everywhere, but they tend to be cute background characters or NPC, not major playable characters or heroes in the series outside of some exceptions like the afromentoined Mog. You may notice how i never brought up Chocobo or the Black Mage here, and one could argue either of those 2 have as much merit as Moogle, with Chocobo even getting a Mii Costume in Smash 4 (alongside.......him) and the Black Mage easily could be based on the FF1 Black Mage, but Final Fantasy has such a large cast of memorable and iconic characters, that if im honest i think Square AND Nintendo AND Sakurai would rather use them over the likes of these 3, even if they lack the "Mascot Appeal" these afromentioned 3 have.
It's clear to me now, that when it comes to having a playable character from a franchise with rotating protagonists, they never seem to go with the Mascot Creature (Pokémon is an exception to this, because the creatures ARE the ones who you plays as and the real focus) but instead the actual protagonists. Either the most iconic, the most recent or the most popular.
-For Final Fantasy, they went with Cloud, and when Sakurai mentioned other possibilities, he never even mentioned the likes Moogle, instead focusing on Terra or Bartz.
-Sakurai DID considered the Slime, but the way he talks about him it's clear Slime was only a last ressort, as his actual interest relied on the Heroes, the ones who are the main stars of the DQ series.
TL;DR Moogle is iconic, but when it comes to FF i see them going for specific protagonists over generic species. Not to mention even in the FF series tend to vary heavily so their roles are inconsistent.
Want: 0%
No thanks. Even though i love Mog and FF6 to bits, i can't say im excited for him. It's either Terra or no one for a FF character.
