the years haven't been very kind to nes dq1/2 either. but yeah, when you consider dq3 was just a couple months after ff2 and ff3 came just after dq4, it's kind of hilarious how far ahead dq was on the nes/famicom. ff did a great job of catching up in the 16bit gen tho. dq5 was bangin' but dq6 was a turd. meanwhile ff was beginning a hot streak that didn't end the whole generation.
Well DQ1 is tolerable and I like DQ2 even tho it is flawed as fuck. It is a cute Wizardry clone.
FF had a perfect run in the snes era. A lot of people praise 7-9 psx era but nuh uh. Snes era of FF kicks its ass in terms of quality. I do prefer psx era Squaresoft as a whole though.
I like the PS1 FFs better as 90s Multimedia CD-ROM Experiences than as RPGs, especially 7.