I think the better ones were Vagrant Story (for putting sort of an invasion, lots of enemies, and creepy scenarios from the start), Final Fantasy IX (like it's explained in the first post, great character introduction allied to action scenes and good gameplay) and Kingdom Hearts (I think the door sequences and the first encounter with the heartless were way outta the road, but they worked, at least for me).

The worst of all was Xenogears. Don't get me wrong: I'm a big Xeno fan, especially Xenogears. But in the beggining, I thought it was just going to be another happy-happy Grandia (again, I'm not saying Grandia is bad; it's just TOO lighthearted in the 1st disk...)... Of course, I end up finding out it was a dark game with a great storyline, good characters and everything, but...well, it was too slow paced...Except for the statue-breaking event in Citan's house.