I actually changed my mind. Recently. Because FF3 and FF4 are genius. Main reason is i started fiddling more in FF4 video game.
If you are a completionist. Playing FF3 and FF4 by just "casually going through them, and then doing the completionist stuff.. is like watching dry paint on the wall dry, its insanely boring".
But then i realised this is not how game developers intended you to beat the game.
Example. In FF3 you can choose whatever job class you want, i tried and it worked. The only padded part is you need to be a black belt job when about level 45-50 and level that one up til level 97 and 98 to peak to HP 9999 (assuming you give a crap) but basically if you listen to online nerds, where they tell you to guard 5/10 times. Its gonna bore the skull out of anyone. So basically... get to the ??? cave, beat the crap out of Iron Giant with Onion Knights, then pick any job class, steal with Thief, Job level up. Beat up dragons with any job class, get stuff, level up. There you go. Now it actually makes sense.
Interms of FF4, there is summons or dragon tails that has rare drop rates.
So interms of delivering earth crystal. You need to be higher level to go further because the enemies there will kick your ass. So you can do it two ways? Either fight random enemies to shit til you are high level up. OOOoor the smart way. Find places to grind for summons by using black chocobo to fly around. Or play it in English first playthrough and Japanese 2nd playthrough to get variety.
So basically. Figuring that out, made me not hate those games. The game design is "PLANNING". So now i officially subjectively like FF3 and FF4. Its the dumb nerds who misled me online who i blame. The games are great. You dont see this type of design often in video games. So basically. Of old FF games. I say FF2, FF3 and FF4 are the best. I still think FF5 and FF6 is overglorified visual novels that has gameplay elements and even tweak some stuff that is useful in further FF games. But i honestly could not care about them basically.