Well, that’s a long post too.
-My favorite Story? tie between VII and IV. IV was my first RPG of any kind, ever, so I’m partial, but I really personalised it. Cecil is a great hero because he’s got that Superman/Cyclops feel to him; He has doubts, and struggles with things once in a while, but he has a job to do, and he’ll do it. No running off half-cocked and leaving the rest of the team, nowhere near as much angst and mid-fight soliloquoys about why he fights as we’re used to from Japanese story-telling, and He’s not some plucky kid who stumbled onto the quest or anything; He’s the renegade former commander of the world’s greatest military force! He’s already got a long-term relationship too. Much more together than we usually get, but he still has a personal struggle, and gorwth to experience, so he isn’t boring either.
VII’s gotta have the best story overall. You need to see those deleted scenes, and even then you kinda have to puzzle out some things for yourself cause they’re never explained outright, but it’s a really good story in spite of all that.
-Best Music? IX all the way. Hands down. Up to and including this one, Nobuo Uematsu single-handedly composed the scores for every one. X he had a little help, but he did all the noteworthy or prominent stuff. This game, as I already said, was to be the send-off for the series older traditions, and he had already let it be known he was going to go free-lance after this. You can really tell he put his heart and soul into IX’s score. The handful of tracks remade from older FF’s were great, but it’s the new stuff, including the numerous iterations of the game’s main theme that are really impressive. Lastly, it’s the last FF to have both Prelude and FINAL FANTASY (aka Prologue), which were in every onne up till then. Prelude is that harp music you always hear. Prologue is sometimes used partway into the beginning, during a sequence showing you an intro text (like in 1 and 4), or during the ending credits. Honestly? having followed the series from 4’s original US release in ~92 on, when I first heard Prologue after the end-theme, knowing it was supposed to be the last FF, I choked up a little. Yes, a videogame’s music made me cry. Buy the song (“Melodies of Life ~ FINAL FANTASY”) on iTunes (or Square’s website) and tell me it ain’t impressive!
-Best Action? Tough. I could say my least favorite (8), but I couldn’t really pick a favorite.
-Best Character Development? X, gotta be the sphere grid. Most balanced J-Console RPG development yet.
-Best Overall? FFX. I prefer the older games, but I won’t try to deny, FFX was a high note for the series. Great way to go out of the old, since Square(-Enix) insists on pissing off fans by abandoning what made them popular (also see Chrono Cross, the high-selling but largely forgotten sequel to Chrono Trigger; a game still hailed as one of, if not the, greatest console RPG ever).
ahem Sorry, ranting. Since you’ve already checked out X and VII, I’d say try IV, IX, VI, and the Original, in that order. It’s light on story and tough gameplay, but it can be real fun (especially when you start replaying it to see how the different line-ups can work).
PS. The other spin-offs were alright… but I cannot emphasize enough how fantastic Final Fantasy Tactics is! And no, that’s not meant to be a pun. It really is one of my all time favorite videogames.