VII and VIII are the only good games series been living on their reputation for quite some time. They should just remake those two with next gen graphics and call it a day.
Didn't play VI on SNES, downloaded emulator some years back tried to play it because of all the critical acclaim, I couldn't get pass the intro, shyt just didn't appeal to me.
Battle system and story, are the most important in rpgs, because thats basically the meat of the game. VII and VIII had good battle systems, so games were challenging and fun to play.
I never played XIII because of the bad reviews, played demo of XIII-2, shyt was just weird to me, but I guess because I never played the first one.
Grandia II on dreamcast is the best rpg, battle system is perfect, only thing missing from it was world map and exploration, butevery rpg should have a battle system like this or the Tales series.