Not VII, but I never played a Final Fantasy before, and the internet told me X is modern-enough, good, and approachable, but I'm having a really hard time getting into it. Plus my time is more limited these days. Maybe I should try powering through?
I think people tend to recommend X these days as the first one for newcomers primarily because it has voice acting and relatively modern graphics, so it's more approachable in that respect. X is my favourite FF, alongside VII, but that doesn't mean it's best at everything, even compared to other FFs. For me, its strength is primarily in its storytelling (which includes things like writing, music and cutscenes) - but all that really takes quite a while to fully reveal itself. I don't personally actually think too highly of X's gameplay. The turn-based combat and the sphere grid are ok, but for me not the best even in the FFs (though I know quite a few people who consider it the best, so it's all personal taste). The temple "puzzles" are terrible. It has some truly terrible minigames (although Blitzball is really great - it just has a terrible tutorial). And it's not as if there are no flaws with the storytelling either - the party members are not on the whole as good as in some of the other FFs, and it was the first FF with voice-acting, so there were some infamously awkward moments. But its storytelling highs are some of the highest I've ever experienced in games - I am still in awe of the sheer beauty of some of its best moments. I mean, it's a game about a giant whale, that makes many people sob their eyes out, fall in love with it, get tattoos for it, etc. But that is also very much personal taste. Are you enjoying the music? Did you like the music and the environment in Besaid? Did the scene of Yuna performing the sending do anything for you in Kilika?
FFX to me is the pinnacle of the FF turn-based battle system. That said, it IS over 20 years old.
I think there's some game genres which, if you didn't grow up on them, you might not enjoy them. Kinda like how you have to eat sushi a few times before you start liking it. I think turn-based JRPGs are aimed at people who enjoyed those games in the 25 years ago. The Metroidvania genre, even more so.
7 and 8 suffer from too much arbitrariness for me, 10 is just the right kind of mixture of weirdness with proper storytelling for me, and with 12, Final Fantasy started to become bland.
X-2 is silly but I at least sympathized with the characters. The entire party in X could be eaten by Sin for all I care.
Good point. I've played Pokemon and South Park: Stick of Truth, so maybe I've had enough of a taste of JRPGs to know what they're about.
I wonder if the grinding was because content was expensive to produce, so it's a lazy way to add gameplay, and their target market is kids who will happily grind if it's a video game (vs. a piano).
I still haven't finished it, but I got further in FF6 in the past year than I did before, thanks to that. (I have very little patience for grinding.)