I know, and I played the US version when I was a kid. But when I replayed the game I played the JPN version on PSX, and it was basically the same. Most of the abilities that were removed in the US version are useless, and the mountain of items you get deserved to be cut in the US version. The only points that gave me trouble in FFIVJP were 1) when I was underleveled and hand't earned the Float spell yet for that one cave where you need that spell and 2) the last boss, where I was underleveled and beating the boss was literally impossible because he would kill my weaker characters before I could even heal them. I gained one level, and he literally went from impossible to cakewalk.
The problem I had with FFIV was that it was too tightly designed. It was just boring. The designers knew what characters/classes you would have, and also knew within a couple levels or so how strong you would be, so there was little room for improvisation. All you have is the story left, and it's a bunch of people heroically sacrificing themselves every 10 minutes.
The second problem I had with it was the dungeons. They were far too linear, and you found nothing of value in them. Contrast that with the earlier games (but especially FF1, where all of the best equipment was found in chests). It drove me nuts in FFIV to go down a winding optional path to get a treasure chest, just to get some fucking item that casts the low or medium level fire spell, when I am already at the point where casting that is like nothing for my mages.
I did like the final dungeon in the game where you can fight the "optional" bosses for high level equipment. I just wish that stuff had been spread throughout the game. I really can't remember a single time in that game where I found anything in a chest that really was a game changer.
However, the music and graphics have aged extremely well. This is one of the few SNES/SFC soundtracks that still sound amazing today. No weird sounding horns and guitars, no weird reverb, just amazing music from start to end. The overworld theme and battle music are simply some of the best video game music ever written.
What I appreciated with the older games is that you had to make decisions in FF 1-3, and if your decisions were retarded, the game got stupid hard and you either had to grind or start over. Of course, that doesn't really happen because we aren't talking about Wizardry or Pool of Radiance here. Unless you choose, like, a party of 4 thieves in FF1, you will be fine. Unless you just follow FAQs and their dumbass "tricks" you will be fine in FF2. Unless you switch classes all over the place, you will be fine in FF3. Rather than getting stuck, it's actually a matter of just playing through the game normal, or steamrolling the second half of the game.