What the fuck is wrong with you guys? The original Final Fantasy is a legitimately good "RPG", in the same sense as the early Wizardries and Ultimas. It has no real role playing, and is basically a dungeon crawler, but is very well balanced and innovative for its time. Hell, it came out just a year after Dragon Quest, a fucking worthless grind fest! It was a huge leap in quality. It doesn't even require grinding; people have won the game with level 10's and such, if good tactics are used! The series only turned into jRPG wankery later...
Final Fantasy Tactics isn't as good as the Ogre series, but the story and translation were good, and it had some nice music and art direction.
Final Fantasy 6 is overrated. It focuses excessively on individual characters and their egos instead of any unifying theme, and the villain is a gay Japanese cliche that Western audiences didn't recognize; he may have well have had a mustache and a black top hat. Same thing.
Final Fantasy 7 is the best of the "jRPG" style that emerged when FF4 (another good FF) came out. It has a lot of interesting ideas outside of the characters, a complex story, and one of the most unique art styles for its time. It deserves every bit of praise it gets.
FF8 took FF6's idea of excessive character development and emo wankery and cranked it up 10x, and it sucked ass, as did every FF after FF7. This series is dead now. Stick to FF1, FF4, FF7, and FFTactics if you want to enjoy it.
Dragon Quest 8 kicked ass. It doesn't require any grinding at all, and the story is pleasant enough; cliched, but pulled off well, and the translation is one of the best I have ever seen in a game. The music and art are great; the DBZ style isn't overdone at all. It's a must-have for jRPG fans, and worth checking out for true RPG fans as well.