That instantly reminded me of a similar situation with the first few Final Fantasy games on the Nintendo systems, and it makes things quite complicated.

Many people in the west first encountered Final Fantasy with FFVII on the Playstation. Logically this means that 6 games were released before it on previous platforms. Right?

Well yes and no. If you lived in Japan then yes you got to see the previous 6 Final Fantasy games released. However in the US you didn't see all of them released, and in Europe none of the previous games had been released prior to the launch of FFVII.

But it gets more complicated. In the US Final Fantasy 1, 2 and 3 were released before 7. But these were not really the first three games of the series. The very first Final Fantasy was released in both Japan and the US. However the 2nd and 3rd games only saw a Japanese release, with Final Fantasy 4 being released in Japan and the US. However as it was actually only the second game to be released in the US they renamed it Final Fantasy 2 for the US market. Then Final Fantasy 5 only saw a Japanese release, but Final Fantasy 6 then saw a joint Japanese and US release, but again due to it not being the 6th game released in the US it was renamed to Final Fantasy 3 for the US market.

Therefore in the US:

Final Fantasy 1 = Final Fantasy I (1)
Final Fantasy 2 = Final Fantasy IV (4)
Final Fantasy 3 = Final Fantasy VI (6)

A great way to confuse.