I honestly enjoyed the 12 story, what I played of it, but the combat system killed it for me and that game got really grindy--I think they were trying to inject their Asian MMO-style sepuku through grinding mechanics into a single player game, which was bad. I mean, you didn't have to collect all that junk to get whatever weapons, but you know you are going to.
FF8 probably should have never been made
FF2 remains my favorite over 3 probably because it was just so different from all of those jRPGs before it. FF3 was more of that, different, better in some ways but I wouldn't say overall better. Some would argue that freedom to design your favorite parties is a feature, but I always felt it was more burdensome. The rotating in and out of your party members in FF2 was always tied to the plot, and you didn't know what was going to happen. Man, I know I was young and all, but that bit in the dwarf castle where you're getting wrecked and then suddenly that chick returns from nowhere with all of her new pets and proceeds to kick ass. I'd say that was one of my favorite video game moments, probably tops, so it's moments like that which always seem to keep FF2 at the top of the heap for me. FF3 was great for environments, character mechanics and the story was also great, but it never had those big punchy moments like FF2.