Different games in the series tend to cater towards different kinds of gamers. At least, that's the sort of trend I've noticed over the years. Four might be the only one of the "Sakaguchi era" games that resembles more of the story-heavy Final Fantasys that began with Six. Although, I guess you could say FF2 did that as well. But then, not many people on this side of the world grew up with Final Fantasy II.