I just finished Final Fantasy Legend 1, then I'm taking a bit of a break and then I'll play Final Fantasy Legend 3 (I played the second one first to see if I liked the series since I'd heard it was so weird).
I played Final Fantasy Adventure a little while ago and really liked it, so I went through Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana (SNES version) after that. I think the first one was my favorite, despite its simplicity. I liked seeing how different things carried through from game to game in the series.
If you haven't played Gargoyle's Quest for the Gameboy yet, I highly recommend it. You just need to tough it out for the first level, then the game gets more fun.