Well, Suikoden is my favourite RPG. It was just the story that hooked me to the series. Not some cheesy love romance thing that has been whored in almost EVERY game, but an original story imo.
Close second would be Shadow Hearts. It showed some proof of being a pretty good game, but the first one had its flaws. The the second game was released and it showed how good and how far (as in why this game is rated 16+ can go (Thomas knows what I mean)), it had many good points and its best point was the story.
Third would be Star Ocean. The first game was pretty good, but was never released over here, nor outside Japan, so I only played it on emulator. The second game did released over here (though people claim it is not, I DO have a PAL version of this game for PSX), it has a pretty good story imo, many sidequest, awesome music, 86 diffirent ending scenes and a whole lot of things to do.
To Marc, as far as I could recall, the things such as gather summons, religion is fake, best friend was a hero some years ago, father is bad guy, hero is a ****** and heroine is clumsy/annoying it was all the same to me.
Tales of Eternia for example didn't had those things.
Star Ocean: Till The End of Time got attention, but that was because Square was on the box, because of the fusion with Enix. Tri Ace and Enix didn't got much attention with Star Ocean and Star Ocean: The Second Story.
Disgaea did some nice things aswell, but wasn't something to write books for, which is too shame, cause this game does deserve it. Can't wait to play the second game in the series, but I still need to get my hands on their other games.
I want to get my hands on Xenosaga 1 and 3, but 1 never was released in Europe for some unkown reason and 3 has no news about an European release yet. The second one was released over here, but that game is considered as "the rotten apple" in the series, such as Suikoden IV is in that series.
Also, even though I dislike the FF games so much, I do own FF I through FF X-2, not counting FF III. I am also planning on getting FF XII. I have no idea why I keep buying these games, but something tells me I want to get my hands on them.
As Marc posted a list, I'll do so aswell:
SNES: Star Ocean, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, Romancing SaGa, Lufia II, Secret of Evermore, Tactics Ogre, Tales of Phantasia, Bahamut Lagoon.
PSX: Suikoden I, Suikoden II, Persona, Star Ocean: The Second Story, Vandal Hearts, Final Fantasy Tactics, SaGa Frontier, Parasite Eve, Grandia, Xenogears, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy IX, Chrono Cross, Valkyrie Profile, Koudelka, Wild Arms, Vagrant Story, Tales of Eternia.
PS2: Shadow Hearts, Shadow Hearts: Covenant, .hack//Infection, .hack//Mutation, .hack//Outbreak, .hack//Quarentaine, Xenosaga Episode I, Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits, Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, Disgaea, Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana, Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga, Suikoden V.
NGC: Skies of Arcadia, Tales of Symphonia.
GBA: Golden Sun, Golden Sun: The Lost Age.
Yup, quite a list. These are all games that will give a you a good time. I am not sure wether you will like all of these, but these are games that have been accepted by most RPG lovers. Try emulators for the SNES games, it is easier then to actually get them on the SNES.