First of all, a big WELCOME.

Advice: If you're going to play a later FF (7 and onwards) I suggest you play it quickly the first time to enjoy the storyline. For example, on FF7, that's what I did the first time, and I didn't bother to level up much or master any materia. You see, these games tend to be fairly complex, so evryone needs to play the game once to get used to it, as practice. Then, the second time you play through it, you have the practice, so you can really get down to some serious leveling up and materia-mastering.

You only have the chance to experience the suprise of plot twists once, so put more of a premium on enjoying the storyline the first time, and then you can get into all the side-quests and leveling up, etc. the next time. These games really do bear re-playing because of the huge number of side-quests that you can do.

The second time you play, I suggest printing off important info such as materia lists, side quests, limit breaks etc. so that you can play the game to its fullest enjoyment.