Serious question that I've always wondered: Back in 1997,

we were little anon jr's at the time, we didn't care

>>322412808

well yeah, that's why I was wondering if some older folks could chime in

All the gaming magazines wrote about the issue with the numbering system, so if you followed everything you knew what was up.

It did make us wonder what the real 2, 3 and 5 were like.

Yeah we had AOL so we knew about everything happening in Japan about like now.

If you weren't already aware of the numerical order from playing fan translations of the missing entries then you're a casual.

I didn't even know about the previous FF games at the time, and my older bro referred to tactics for ps1 as 6 so I just assumed they were all already out.

>>322412636
all i knew was that the game was getting great reviews and all my friends were playing it. I didnt understand that FF's werent connected until i bought 8 and didnt see any of the same characters.

>>322412636
I was 9 when this was released.
The Official Playstation Magazine actually explained the whole series in one of their monthly issues including plots and the localisation changes, was very informative and i felt smart as fuck telling everyone at school how the series came about.

>>322412907
There really wasn't much confusion, most people had never heard of Final Fantasy and so didn't care. Those who had were already largely aware of the fact that 3 was really 6, and that 5 hadn't been released in the US thanks to the still new NES/SNES emulation at the time.

There was also a pair of collected versions shipped for the PSX that had the older games with their proper numbers.

i had never heard of final fantasy before so didnt really care. FF games on SNES were super fucking obscure and niche, FF7 was the opposite: massive ad campaign, AAA title. For a long time the two main franchises were EA sports and Final Fantasy but ONLY after VII

>>322413702
There were TV ads for Final Fantasy 3/6, but it didn't have the marketing blitz that 7 got possibly simply because taking the FMV and putting it on TV was way cheaper than producing original content for the ad.

>>322413092
This

By the time VII came out people who were into the franchise knew about the numbering shenanigans from magazines and even early internet forums etc. and also were pissed that we only had half of the Final Fantasys over here.

>>322412636
No. Because we actually learned to read back then and understood it right away.

File: The-Final-Fantasy-Legend-3[1].jpg (57KB, 640x640px) Image search: [Google]

57KB, 640x640px

the other 3 were gameboy games, duh

>>322412636

As someone who is 31 and remembers this:

We knew that we didn't get all the Final Fantasy games over here. I learned about it from a magazine, other people had internet and could discuss it. I was the first kid to have internet access in my school (dial-up muthafugga) and was largely unaware of internet forums, as I mostly used it for hentai and playing multiplayer.

>>322413702

This is wrong, FFVI was hugely advertised and was hellishly expensive at the time. I still remember the moogle advertisements in magazines. I don't remember FFIV advertisements, though, I was too young.

>>322412636

Nobody gave a shit about Final Fantasy before VII so it was fine.

I always assumed there were Japanese only releases that we never saw.