My opinion is never invalid.

Final Fantasy VII, VIII, IX and/or Crisis Core on PSP
Final Fantasy IX and/or X on PS3 (or PS2)

aahh!

your not the only one, i recently bought FF1 for smartphones and i have to say its pretty good, i have not played that game since the original NES, i hated RPGs back then, i was about 5

Well if you own a Ps3 I would prefer Final Fantasy 13 and since 13-2 is coming soon it should be a good bonus.

Now for the 360 Final Fantasy 13 and 13-2 will come for the system. In addition the 360 has final fantasy 11 which is a pay to play MMO. I haven't played this because I lack the money, but hey I think it looks good and many people still play. It also has many many expansions.

The 3DS I have heard of one final fantasy game which is a Rhythm based FF game. Not much information has been released far as I know.

The 360 and Ps3 is your best bet for now if you wanna start playing now. The 3DS will have to wait..

You're not the only one either I'm currently replaying FF6. I been playing 2, 5, and 9 for awhile and I must say they are good. People should be more appreciative instead of worrying about graphics. I mean it was the NES back then.

I'm the same as you (except I just don't like much pre-NES), but chances are if this guy has never played FF, he is a new gamer, and most new gamers don't want to go back to sprite based gameplay. Even some of my old gamer buds just see no reason to go back and play anything older then 10 years.

If he were to go through all FF's, then yea, maybe starting from 1 (skipping 3 since it's a 3D DS game, or at least pushing it back), and working to 13 makes sense. However if he were to play 1 Final Fantasy game, it should be a new one.

And whoever suggested FFIX, that's pretty smart. 3D FF, with old school routes. The creator of FF said it was his favorite too.

I'm playing FFVI on my cell phone now too! However I am playing the GBA ROM (I own a copy so it's fine).