It's like how the best final fantasy is always the first final fantasy anyone ever played.
False. My favorite is 12. Maybe 8. First I played was 1 on NES. (I beat it when I played it on my GBA when I was older) The first I finished was 8 on the PS1. The first I 100% was 12. That series is better divided into eras anyways.
1 for the NES era. 2 had a too complex and opaque system. The job system in 3 was too complex for the hardware.*
6 for SNES era. 4 is a close second, but the opera scene and magitek sell 6 for me. 5 is too plain.*
8 for the PS1 era. Got hooked on this because of a demo with the opening cut scene with the gun blade. 9 is second but a disappointed that it was fantasy and not sci-fantasy. 7 was meme to death before I really got a chance to play it so it has a sour taste in my mouth. Kinda like Naruto. I also remember it being real grindy. When they do a proper remaster of 7-9 like they did with 1-6, I will give it another shot.
I like 12 story, combat, and US license system. 10 felt to much like a throwback as well as the sphere grid and blitzball being overrated.
13 was OK, but it felt like they were fighting the PS3s hardware and smelling they own farts a bit too much. They weren't kidding about being in what amounts to city alleys for 40 hours before it really opened up, but that was more of a design thing. The JRPGs I have played on the 360 and PS3 all felt like they were going down linear corridors most of the time.
Haven't play 15 or 16, but they are on my wishlist.
I wont play 11 or 14 since they are MMORPGs and I don't like those.
*I have only played thru the Pixel Remastered versions of 3 and 5. I didn't play the nDS of 3. Which is weird since I had a flash cart. I did play about 15 minutes of 5 emulating the PS1 version, but that was 14 minutes of loading things. 1 and 2 were done on my GBA before and 4 and 6 were done via emulation. I had 8 and 9 on my PS1 and have only emulated 7. I had 10 and 12 on my PS2. I played the PC version of 13 since it was ported. The 1-6 Pixel Remasters, 10 HD Remake, 12 HD Remake, and 13 are all in my Steam library now.