FF-13 is the reason it's at #2. 13 pretty much shat on what made FF good, and fed it to us like it was covered in gold. If you think 13 is at least okay at best, I suggest any of the others. If you don't like retro stuff, FF12 was still 10 times better despite Yiazmat literally taking 8 legit hours to kill.

I won't deny that 13 had good characters. Well, some good characters. There were more bad than usual, but they at least didn't outnumber the good. FF12 had only one unlikable character, and that was easily Baasch, with Vaan at a close second. It's a good thing Balthier made up for both of their shortcomings and literally gave Final Fantasy the [b]greatest airship pirate the world will ever see.[/b] I tried making Balthier a character once for an RP. I couldn't do him any justice whatsoever. I played through FF12 three times just to experience Balthier's lines over and over again, just to tell you how much I loved him and him alone.