Yeah, its a pretty great starting place. FF4-6 would be a more traditional place to start, any of them are worth playing.
Chrono trigger
Hudson Russell
Alexander Allen
The FF and Dragon Quest games are completely stand alone, each game is a completely different setting and cast (at least with FF, dunno about Dragon Quest, haven't played them much).
The Mother series is all in one continuity, but each game is stand alone enough that you don't need to have played the previous installments to enjoy them.
Jason Adams
If it‘s just audio then i don‘t mind. I prefer playing native on my 2ds than having to emulate
What are the absolute best games of the dragon quest and final fantasy series? For dragon quest i‘ve seen 8 and 11 be talked about a lot
Ryan Richardson
this is the first jrpg I finished playing because the rest were boring garbage, I couldn't get into FF at all despite trying all of them
after it was DQ5, they both remain my favorite jrpgs
Owen Martinez
I know that the first three Dragon Quest games are connected continuity-wise but not to the extent that you NEED to play all three of them to get the story at all
David Jones
Are the gba ports fine?
Is mother 1 worth playing? I only see 2 and 3 being talked about
Easton Richardson
DS version is dull tiny text. Not as bad when I played it on a XL 3DS though.
Jose Ramirez
Most of the FFs are worth playing honestly.
4 is where the series really took off, 5 has a lighter, more simplistic story than 4 but has one of the best job systems ever in an RPG. 6 was Squeenix at their most polished (though ironically the game is kinda buggy, but not in ways that you'll generally notice) during the SNES era, if you had to play only one FF ever, 6 is a pretty good choice.
FF7 has kinda balls graphics, but it's an early PS1 title so that's to be expected. 8 was one of the more experimental installments combat systems wise. It's pretty love it or hate it, you'll have to decide for yourself. 9 is a throwback to earlier FFs, pretty fuckin solid. 10 is also pretty divisive, but generally considered to be one of the better installments (outside of Yas Forums of course). 12 is considered to have one of the best plots in the franchise, but you'll have to decide whether the MMO lite gameplay works for you. 13 is generally considered skippable. Leaving out 11 and 14 since they are MMOs, but they are by no means bad.
Also consider playing FF Tactics, it's a spinoff but it's amazing
Ignoring all of what I just said, if you want just one FF to be recommended, I guess I would go with 6. It's just all around great.
Anthony Hill
The other main problem is that the DS version has a different translation which is more accurate to the Japanese, but is more dry and less charming as a result. It's not terrible though, and it does have extra content at least.
FF4 is best on PSP, but good on GBA. 5 is best on GBA. For 6, you want to go with SNES Ted Woolsey Uncensored Edition + Bugfixes patch. FF6 had really good graphics which are hurt by an overly bright GBA palette, and the music is mangled harder by the GBA soundchip than 4 and 5's Chrono Trigger DS is perfectly 1:1 with its original soundtrack in comparison. Whatever you do, avoid mobile and PC ports of FF6 like the plague.
The Mother series does connect. 1 and 2 feature the same main villain and visually similar protagonists, and 3 features multiple key characters from EarthBound. 1 is not that good, but it does have a nice atmosphere. 2 is a bit stiff and plays dated even for its time but carries itself with boatloads of charm. 3 is by far the best in terms of gameplay and has slightly better graphics, and arguably the best story. All three games have terrific soundtracks, especially 2 and 3.
Christian Kelly
If you don't care about the audio, the GBA ports have more content than any other version (that isn't the phone/pc version, but I can't recommend those because they look like absolute ass, it's a mystery what squeenix was thinking), so they would be the definitive versions to go for I suppose. But if you care about audio, stick with the SNES versions (though 5 would be a fan translation, though not a terrible one in that case).
Also Mother 1 is wonky, it's definitely Mother, but it's also pretty dated in that the graphics aren't great and there are random encounters out the wazoo, while Earthbound and Mother 3 have enemies appear on the map to attack you instead. If you can handle the old fashioned roughness, there's some charm to be had, and the final boss of Mother 1 comes back as the final boss, but different in Earthbound, but that isn't something you need to know to enjoy Earthbound and beyond.