Old-School RPG
I've actually never played a Final Fantasy game ever, so this seems like a good start as any. The story is great and pretty light hearted, and really kept me motivated to stick with all the grinding needed to build up your characters levels to be ready for the final battle.
Actually the grinding was not too bad as there was enough new things to try and do, so it didn't seem like you had to keep doing the same thing over and over.
In summary, a fantastic old school rpg game that you should try out. Just make sure you have a lot of patience because 45 hours is a lot of time to invest on a game. (I also actually bought the gameguide book too, it was very well done and it helped a lot!)