I never played a Final Fantasy game before but I hear how good the series is, what game should I start with?

>XV if you like boring triple A shit. It's basically TLOU/Uncharted/Anthem/Destiny Tier levels of bland
Say what you want, but Ardyn is one of the best things to come out of the franchise.

>FF 9 is a good entree point
no it's not a good "entree" point, it's fanservice the game. prior final fantasies are definitely reccomended before it

All of the stuff you list at the end about IV was taken from earlier games. III has all of those.

they aren't plot relevant in FF3 though. FF4 establishes plot relevancy for all of those elements that are expanded upon in later entries.

Meteor is just a powerful spell in FF3, but in FF4 it's a legendary spell that causes a character's death, and it becomes a major plot point in FF7.
Summoners also gain plot relevance in FF4 as a "special" class, which became the primary focus of FF 9 and 10.

>Joker-lite but with whiny emo bullshit

No he's not. Ignis and the boy band are the best thing to come out of that game. Through all of their blandness at least their interactions outside of the story are fun.

The versions of 3 available in English are abominations, and like 5, original 3 doesn't explain the differences between the jobs they're just there, where in 4 every thing is in context into the story

1 for dated
2 for shit
3 for nope
4 for bland
5 for deep mechanics
6 for pretending to be an oldfag
7 for soul
8 for kino
9 for comfy
10 for sissy training
11 for no one played it
12 for vagrant story single player mmo
13 for lightning
14 for boring mmo
15 for wasted potential