it's just the fact that there were no mainstream RPGs in the west. you think you americans had it bad? FF7 was the first game thought worthy of europe!! we didn't get the other six, or chrono trigger, or xenogears or any other number of classics.

if you consider that they made an easier version of FF4 for the USA, it's easy to see how they didn't make an FF5 at all, it's much, much more complicated than FF4. i'm not saying it shouldn't have been released tho...