I played and beat FF1 back in 1990 when it came out in the US. My elementary school was a virtual NES society; everybody in the school had an NES, and traded games back and forth on a daily basis, so everybody got to play everything. When Super Mario Bros. 3 came out, there was one girl in school who managed to get a copy on release day, and then all of the stores in town were sold out for months. There were all sorts of contests and competitions held to get on her waiting list of people who could borrow it for 1 night.

Getting back to FF, well, I played every FF game in the order they were released in the US. FF1 first, then 4, 6, 7, Tactics, 8, 5, 9, 2, 10, X-2, and 12 (a little bit of 11, but not much). The first three games I played merely because I would play everything that came out, but after playing FF6 through several times on the SNES, I was hooked.