5. IX
I don't remember anything about this game. I beat it when it came out. And outside of making your characters and my monk being broken as all hell, I don't remember a thing. None of the plot points or towns or any NPCs. Outside of Stella and that's just because of Fynn.

4. VIII
The cast is fantastic. I love the story and world. The antagonist is great. But boy howdy is it slow. During the second half, it takes forever for anything to happen and that's before it all comes grinding to halt near the end. And leveling is so slow. If you're not grinding on Metal Slimes, the battles hardly feel worth it. And you can't respecc. So once a point is spent, it's gone.

3. V
I loved going through the hero's life. You can get married to two important people in his life (or Deborah). You play with his kids. And you get to see the world change around him. It's a very heartwarming game.

2. XI
I loved every moment of this game. The cast of characters was great. And it made me feel things a game hasn't made me feel in a long time. And I loved the skill tree. The thing that's stopping it from taking the top spot is a very minor thing, the post-game pacing. The post-game bosses are balanced to be taken on at around Lv80 or so. You reach the post-game in your high 50s. The hero was 56 in my game. So you have to stop what you're doing and just grind. And the pacing up to that point was fantastic.

1. VII
I played it on the Playstation along time ago. And just couldn't get into it. Made it to like the second or third island and returned it to the rental store and never picked it back up. Then I played it on the 3DS and loved every moment of it. Like Fynn said, it's very episodic and that's my favorite thing about it. And the vocation system was fun. And I loved the normal battle music.