Did you know that Final Fantasy II really isn't Final Fantasy II? The truth is, in Japan there where 3 Final Fantasy's for the Nintendo system instead of just one. The Final Fantasy II & III for Nintendo were completely different than the ones that were here for the Super Nintendo. So the Final Fantasy II for the Super Nintendo was actually Final Fantasy IV. There was a part V,but that was never realesed here in the U.S. Then came a part VI which was our part III, then a part VII. That explains why the latest Final Fantasy is called Final Fantasy VII and not VI. Also there were two versions of Final Fantasy IVj realesed in Japan, these were Final Fantasy IVj normal and a Final Fantasy IVj easy version, you can find out more about this in my Final Fantasy 2 & 4j differences FAQ.
My Opinion is that our friends at Squaresoft were a bit dissapointed when the first Final Fantasy didn't do to good so they didn't bother to bring out part IIj & IIIj. Then later on they wanted to see how part IVj would do so they sent it over here, it still didn't really blow up like they thought it would so they skipped part V. Then they sent part VI over and that one seemed to have hooked a vast amount of us, it sold more than the previous ones, so they decided to send over part VII, which was nothing short of a masterpiece, other than the seemingly incomplete ending. And now part VIII will be the next FF to hit the shores. Winter of 99, I can hardly wait.