Face it. They laid the groundwork but that's it. No one cares about the foundation of the building. it's the structure erected on top that is the real focus of attention and with good reason.

The first 3 games have about as much plot as your average Saturday Morning cartoon but with even less interesting characters.

The battle systems they had were either horrible (FF2 "I beat myself up and get stronger") or were improved in later games (FF3's Job System being improved in 5 and X-2)

So really, they might be good for nostalgia trips but they are the weakest games in the series undoubtedly.

If you want to make a topic about Worst Story, Worst Soundtrack, worst...anything, there can be no real choice besides one of those 3.