One of the new elements introduced very early into Final Fantasy 7 Remake are moogle medals, which appear to serve no purpose until hours after they’re introduced. This guide will help you make sense of this collectible, where to find them, and what you can (eventually) do with them!
Where to Find Moogle Medals
While you can find moogle medals in chests around the world, you’re more likely to find them in Shinra boxes. Shinra boxes are found basically everywhere, but usually in dungeons and enemy-rich areas. These collections of boxes with the Shinra logo on them can be smashed by hitting the Square button. You should always do this! These boxes can yield nothing, but more often than not they’ll refill your MP by a little bit with a mako shard or provide you with low level items like potions and sometimes, rarely, better items like ethers. Periodically, you’ll get a moogle medal.
Don’t fret if you feel like you’re missing a place to dump these special items. There isn’t a place to do it in the early game and you can’t accidentally sell them or anything. You’re good.
Finding Moggie and the Moogle Emporium
So where can you spend these moogle medals? Once you get to the Sector 5 slums with Aerith for the first time, you’ll visit her house and collect flowers for the nearby school as part of the main quest. You’ll be approached by Oates, one of the kids in town, about two of his buddies being scared by a man in dark robes who might be in danger. This begins a new part of the main quest called “Danger in the Hideout” where you head into the NO ADULTS ALLOWED OKAY part of Sector 5 slums to look for the perpetrator and the kids who ran away.
Use your waypoints at the top of the screen to head to the hideout in case you missed it on your way in (you couldn’t get in there anyway before now). It’ll be closer to the front of town. There’s some playful graffiti pointing your way to a crack in the wall where you and Aerith can shimmy through.
The kids will point you further in. You can’t really get lost in this area as it’s pretty linear. You’ll fight monsters that range from the easy to kill wererats to iconic hedgehog pies and finally a tank-like smogger. A group of hedgehog pies and a smogger taunt two of the kids stranded on the river clinging to life. Dispatch the enemies and approach the ledge. Cloud will do his heroics and then you’ll be able to lead the kids back to the hideout. After completing this and finding the dude in robes in a cutscene, Moggie the merchant appears. It’s tough to miss him. He’s dressed like a moogle and the theme from the Gold Saucer is playing in his boombox.
What’s for Sale at the Moogle Emporium?
Before shopping at the Moogle Emporium, you’ll need to spend one measly moogle medal to buy a membership card with the store. You should have plenty. I had 24 moogle medals by the time I first met Moggie. After you buy a card, the Moogle Emporium truly opens up with some very rare and cool items that should help give every character a boost at this point in the game.
If you’re a JRPG completionist (or buy every KK Slider track in Animal Crossing New Horizons) you’ll want to grab “Gold Saucer” for one medal. Ethers are two medals but you should probably have plenty of these by now. The real highlights are below.
The Silver Staff is a heavy magic weapon for Aerith that boosts her ability to cast damaging magic right away, so that’s a good pickup for sure. The graveyard key is a special item that unlocks a later sidequest area you’ll want to pick up now before you’re prompted to grab it by the quest giver. The Salvation Badge is a good healer accessory, but the Whistlewind Scarf is one of the best accessories in the mid game, which gives an ATB boost entering battle, shortening the time that character can use an Ability or Spell. The four books for sale will give each corresponding character 10 SP to boost their weapons, which is well worth the 5 moogle medals. What if you can’t afford them?
Farming Moogle Medals
If you’re short on moogle medals, you can use the sidequest “A Verified Hero” to farm them pretty easily. Found in the same hideout as Moggie, you can find Sarah in the hideout who will ask if you want to play Whack-a-Box. You do. It’s a minigame where cloud has a minute to destroy marked boxes. There are good items to get by maxing out your score, but for our purposes here you’ll want to just play this as many times as you want because your basic participation will yield you a moogle medal per attempt.
