Why did this game not come to America?

[Red Wizard]

I can understand why Final Fantasy 2 and 3 didn't make it to the USA, but why did FF5 not come over? FF4 was successful in the USA, and FF5 basically had the same plot (stop the bad guy from collecting crystals to destroy the world) and nothing seems to indicate that it wouldn't go over.... so was there a reason we could not have made this a part of my childhood? I feel deprived now that I'm going through this game again on the DS and didn't see it until I was an adult.

 

[Robbiedbee]

According to the Wikipedia article, FFV was "just not accessible enough to the average gamer".

Although it has "basically the same plot" in your words, I'd say FFIV was far more sophisticated in it's storytelling, there is a rich cast of characters, we're the four (five) characters in FFV are really quite bland by comparison. Maybe Square didn't have the confidence that FFV would satisfy the western audience after FFIV.

 

[Shaissa]

There are many theory's on this actually...

See back then JRPGs didn't really sell amazing outside of Japan. They had many theory's on this.

One was simple, games were just too hard for the Western world. Which is why when FFIV (II in America) came here it was actually made as the "easy version" of the game. When they were making FFV they feared that the battle system was just going be too complicated for the rest of the world so they didn't bother trying to release this game and instead got to work on Final Fantasy Mystic Quest... such a terrible game...