Have you played the FF7 Remake? More than anything, it feels a lot more immersive to me than the original.
I'm also tempted now to go and give Final Fantasy 3 (aka FF6) a play through. I've never actually played that game, even though it's widely considered to be a better game than FF2. It would be a good way determine how much of my fondness for those other games is nostalgia vs. them being great games in their own right.