Which Fantasy?

I alwayas try to start a series by the first game so i would recommend you do that, i dont know if they are for pc but the first i think 4 or 6 games are on google play

Final Fantasy games don't have to be played in any particular order as each are basically set in their own world with their own characters (except when they are a direct sequel, etc...)

You have a good number to choose from now on Steam. I just started FFXIII yesterday. I really enjoyed 7 (characters, world, battle music, MATERIA system). 8 was ok for me... I haven't played the earlier ones that are on here before (but have played other FF games).

both 7 an 8 are awsome games

They say that 7th one is the best.

every final fantasy has its own story,characters,world and gameplay.i've played and finished some of them(iv,v,vi,tactics,vii,viii,ix,x) back in the day on psx and ps2.top 3 for me are vii,viii and ix with viii my personal favorite maybe cause its the very first ff i've ever played.
the most world known is ff7 so maybe you should play that.

If you like high fantasy settings I'd go with IX, if you like magitek VII and VIII are great games.
Can't say anything about XIII.
IV is a good game, but i feel that older titles are quite slow in battle. I don't know if there is a turbo key like on an emulator.
If there is no such option, I'd consider emulating it. Also, VI is awesome too.

IX is the best for me. Sadly, it's on the PSX only currently.

on pc try 7 or 8 first, (i really wish theyd bring 9 and final fantasy tactics to pc though...12 also since the battle style is more suited to pc)

Sorry bout my english but here is my thoughts about the series:

i played IV, VI, VII, VIII, IX and XIII

IV: Great game but i wasn't patient to finish
VI Even better than IV but still didn't had patience to finish
VII: The first game from the series i played. It was REALLY great, i finished and it's my favorite game of all games i ever played. (sometimes i play it again, i already finished it like 5 times ahaha)
VIII: I finished twice, it's really good but not as good as VII because of some emotional content that i don't like very much.
IX: Never hooked me in, played for 1h, nothing more... Some people says it's the best of the series
XIII: The beginning was so gay i couldnt go through the game, i played for like 2h trying to give it a chance but... it's a homossexual game

I'd try Final Fantasy VI if I were you for a start. If you like it, music, story-wise then I'd go for VII but beware, the midi music suck real bad on the pc version (same for VIII), it feels really cheap and good quality music is capital with those JRPG so you'd be better with the psx version for these two. If you ever happen to enjoy those retro JRPG then Chrono Trigger is worth a ride too!

I'd recommend 4, 6, 7, and 9.
And it's better to just emulate them because the DRM on steam versions is horrible, and you shouldn't support that.

I'd go for VII first, since, in my opinion, it's one of my least favorite games in the franchise (Even though it's probably the fan-favorite). It's one the easiest entries in the franchise, and the plot is pretty good (Not as good as VI's, or IX's.). The thing about VII is that characters don't go through much development, as opposed to VIII and XIII, which are often considered the worst entries in the franchise (And are among my favorites, to be honest).

If you're willing to use emulators, go for the Super Nintendo / Gameboy Advance Trilogy. IV is quite difficult, V is probably the easiest entry in the series (And one of my favorites), VI is full of sidequests, but it still is pretty good. FF X and IX are often considered the best games in the series, and they have great characters, so you should probably go for those as well (Keep in mind that you will need a PS2 and a PSx emulator to run those.)

Start with FF IV.

VII is good but the graphics & movement will be a drag.

Long memorizing answer:

VIII was the 1st I played. It has pretty interesting and different magic system. It's not the best but grinding was fast and combat felt great.

VII was the 2nd I played. The materia leveling is pretty neat and it has Sephiroth. Story is good enough and it keeps you hooked.

IX was 3rd. Loved it as it felt very much like the originals.

VI was 4th. Well it's my favourite.... For me it's pretty much THE Final Fantasy.

II was 5th. Leveling was fun but didn't like the fact that one of party members is constantly changing...

I, III, (IV,) V, and X were somewhere there and I never finished them(excluding IV+Exp) X was annoying... 1st was just very dated. III didn't have "real" characters.

Then there was XII which I liked but my disk got busted because of my mom ;___; Now I just hope they'll make a remake out of it...

For short: VIII, VII, IX or VI

If you WANT to buy, start with III, or VII on Steam. IF not, emulate and get them all, then start with VI.

Of the versions that are on Steam, III is slow and hard, IV has severe difficulty spikes that will murder you, VII has the 1998 MIDI version of its soundtrack, VIII starts off very slow, XI is an old MMO, XIII is extremely linear and cutscene heavy, and XIV is a newer MMO. I'd say take a look at some in-game footage of IV, VII, and XIII and go with whichever combination of flaws and graphics seems the best to you. Based just on your post, that's probably VII as a nice middle ground, but it's hard to say how important that "easy difficulty" is vs. "well created characters".

If you're talking the entire series, well, my username and profile picture are a character from VI, so I'm obviously going to tell you to play that one. It's also one of the easiest games in the series and contains some of the best developed characters, so it fits your preferences very well. If you can handle sprite graphics, start with the SNES version of VI (Also called III - if you find a SNES game called Final Fantasy III, it's really VI). If you really want some kind of polygons, go with the PSX version of VII and you'll still find pretty mild difficulty and solid characters. If you need newer graphics than that, go with the first game you can stomach and work backwards knowing that the characters will get better and the cutscenes will get shorter as you reach VI and VII.

Oh, and one note about the gameplay. If there's an aspect of the battle system in any of the games that you dislike, there is another game in the series that changed it. The series reinvents its magic systems, class systems, and even battle systems on a regular basis. There's even a game in the series that doesn't have experience points or level ups at all. So if there's something you hate in one of the games, just ask and someone can recommend a game that doesn't have that element.

Just stopped playing FFX HD remaster trying to dodge 200 Lightning bolts.. got to 32, fuck that

Final Fantasy XIII has easy mode and its a walk in the park. In terms of graphics its the most beautiful one.
I'm about 2 hours in and must admit I like 7 and 8's characters and storyline more.

Ive played VI, VII, VIII IX and X. Loved the old school looks of 6, hated the graphics of 7, Loved and 8 ( looked great, interesting game play) and thought 9 was so so. X was also very good. I havent played any of the recent ones, but knowing the FF franchise, their are most likely very good

Ive played all until PS2 games so ive played from the I to the XII.

The 3 first ones have newer versions for PSP, Android and such, they are great games but kind of hard... if you are into easy story driven games, this are not, they tell you that you need some item and you dont know where to start to look, so you will probably have to walk a lot and fight a lot of monsters until you figure out what you have to do...

The IV, V and VI are the super nintendo ones, they are great, they are my personal favorites, very nice stories and fun mechanics for developing your characters, specially VI with the esper-based magic growth...

the VII, VIII and IX are the PSX ones, from this 3 games i personally love VII characters and ecologic story they are very fun, and this particular game has a lot of minigames that are pretty fun. The VIII its more like a love story that i liked a lot, has good mechanics but can be too easy if you know how to do some things... I didnt liked IX, some people say its the best installment but i really didnt liked it...

The X its the last game with the old fighting style its a very fun game i didnt like the summons in this game, but it had a minigame of a sport where i think i spent more time than in the actual game xDD

The XII its the last game of PS2 and i really enjoyed it the story was weird about 2 empires colliding on a kingdom where the main character live, this is the first game with the real time fighting mechanics, its pretty fun but some of the oldschool fanatics dont like it...

So my suggestion is to play the IV, V or VI, you can find them on emulators for supernintendo, or in newer versions like final fantasy anthology on PSX or maybe on PSP or Android.

The PC versions of VII and VIII are pretty horrible because of the sound, the PSX version was way better so i actually recommend to play them on emulators too :)

I've played I, III, IV, VII, VIII and X. Probably VI is the best one even if I haven't beaten it yet but...on PC, maybe VII or VIII are the best for now

All of them... Seriously.

I have all of them aside from XI and XIV(MMOs). I haven't played XIII yet as I just got it now that it was released on Steam (I don't own any 3rd gen consoles), and I haven't yet played it yet due to an overload of work at the moment, so I can't say anything about that. I have all of them between the PSN versions for PSP and the ones released on NDS, as well as the ones on PS2.

Though the stories are not related, and can be played in any order, I'll still suggest you play them from the earliest one you can handle. The reason for this is the sort of evolve throughout the series, building on previous foundations and bringing in new elements and ideas (eg battle systems, jobs/classes). I feel that playing a newer one first may taint your experience of the older ones, however they're more difficult to get into than the newer ones, because of difficulty and less action. I'd say as the series goes along, the games get easier/less grindy and generally shorter, but more impressive/exciting.

I'd say the first few are very slow and you have to grind a lot for levels. If you've never played games like this, best start from the later ones, because you may get bored or be disappointed. Also the 'characters' were only added in the remake, an don't have much depth at all. However, if this doesn't bother you, start with III (or the first 2 if you're not specifically wanting Steam versions). I've played the NDS remake, and I believe the Steam version is a port of this. If you're interested in the first 2, I have the Anniversary Edition of I & II on PSP.

If III is not your cup of tea, try IV. It was the first to introduce timed battles, which changed up the turn-based system. I have it both on NDS and the 'complete' release on PSP. I personally prefer the PSP version of IV, but apparently the Steam versions are ports of the NDS version. V & VI haven't been brought to Steam (but they probably will since they also have Android versions), but I would group them with IV in the general scheme of things. I have the PSN version of both on my PSP, so I can't speak for their Android remakes, but I'd say these had some pretty great characters.

VII & VIII are very different from the others, I'd say their worlds are very modern/futuristic, and although it's not on Steam (and hasn't been remade AFAIK), I also really liked IX. I have all of these on my PSP from PSN. Also 7 was the first made in 3D graphics rather than 2D (Though the Steam versions of III & IV are the remade versions, so this doesn't matter much). VII in particular has a very industrial feel. The characters I'd say some are maybe poorer than the previous games, but I enjoyed the atmosphere and storyline. I loved the VII world, but I would recommend these three equally.
I would also recommend the prequel, Crisis Core for PSP - the battle system is very different, with a strange slots system that happens randomly for you do perform special moves, but I thoroughly enjoyed the story, and the soundtrack was awesome as well. You learn the history of the original game, including the history of Sephiroth. My profile pic comes from there, the character Genesis. Dirge of Cerberus for PS2, is the sequel that happens after the movie, Advent Children. It also only follows one character, and you learn his history through various flashbacks. I didn't like this one as much, it was sort of a 3rd person shooter, and the story I feel was kind of poor in comparison.

Although it's not on Steam, X (PS2) was the first game in the series that I actually finished. The main character has serious Daddy issues, but other than that I liked most of the characters, though the story could have been better. At the time, the graphics were amazing, but to look at them now is a whole different story. Don't bother with X-2, I didn't even manage to finish it. The antagonist is annoying, and I feel it was a game that wasn't necessary. The garment grid system though sort of evolved from the job system, and that sort of idea was used again in Kingdom Hearts II, with less of a job/class feel to it, so there is some good that came out of it.

XII (also PS2) I really liked because it sort of felt a lot more like the older games, and I liked the characters and world design a lot. The battle system was changed in that they removed the break between battles and moving around, so you fight in real time, and you can see them coming. The new battle system took quite a while to get used to, but I ended up really liking it.

Hope this may help you decide which to play. Good luck!

There is no need for you to limit yourself to steam versions of Final Fantasy games. You can play all Final Fantasy games on PC via emulators. You can even emulate the PSP version of Final Fantasy type-0 that's getting an HD makeover for the consoles.
FF IV, V, VI (played them on my phone!),IX and X are fantastic. Haven't played the earlier ones, but I played the sequels that I haven't mentioned here, and I saw a complete playthrough of XIII and this is the one I would recommend anyone to skip. It's inexcusably linear for an rpg and it's incredibly boring (the game would be best described as being designed by emo's), plus I hear the PC version is just a horrible mess. VII, VIII and XII are fine, except that VII and VIII's graphics didn't age well at all, and if you believe all the hype around VII, you'll probably end up disappointed.

To sum it up...

IV, V, VI, IX and X - great

VII, VIII, XII - good

XIII - flashy looking crap is still crap.