My personal favorites:

Final Fantasy Tactics: Awesome gameplay, music, monster breeding, a bit top-heavy with plot though.

FFVIII: Great gameplay, music, place/monster designs, card game, hate the way you get money.

FFVII: Excellent gameplay, magic system, chocobo subquests, a bit preachy at times.

FFVI: Perhaps the best of the old-school FF series.

The other ones are good but not too much to write home about.

Since it was brought up, Valkyrie Profile is excellent in design, gameplay and music. But it's a bit depressing when you realize *Spoiler* each of your main characters have to *die* before you can recruit them.