My favorite is VII. Hands down. I love the story, I love the characters. I honestly didn't care for 8. I mean, I beat it to death. but.... I thought Junction was complicated to the point of aggrivation. The characters are "Whatever, Teacher, Punk, Generic FF Chick, Hyper, Cowboy, and Dark Woman." And they never change. Granted, that can be said about 7, too, that most of the characters don't change much. But I found it most noticably annoying in 8. The story had more holes in it than swiss cheese. Granted, 7 had some plot holes, but it had SUCH a well done back story that if you actually look into it, you can find the answers to most of them. Don't get me wrong, FF8 beats the crap out of most other games, but when compared to others in the series, IMO it isn't up to snuff. So my list is like this:
FF7
FF6/FF10
FF5/FF9
FFX-2 (Click this link to see my initial response.)
FF8/FF1
I really haven't played 2, 3, and 4.
Outside of the 'core' series...
I loved Tactics, but the first time through I found it rediculously easy, and the second time I found it impossibly difficult. O_o
Tactics Advance... I didn't play a *lot* of it, but I found it rather hokey and quite honestly, a travesty that it's been hailed as a sequel to Tactics.
Currently, I'm playing Mystic Quest. (I picked it up for $0.50 (USD) at a garage sale!) And honestly, I quite enjoy it. It isn't deep or anything, but it's kinda fun. ^^ It could almost be called an abstract of an RPG.
Well, that's my two cents. FF8 fans, please don't try and argue with me, I won't argue back, just stating my opinion. You're completley entitled to your own.
-Contraspontanus X. Zydralexinar~