I never played any other Final Fantasy game besides XIII. And yet the experience was so bad that not only did the hate it spill into the rest of the Final Fantasy games but it also made me hate the RPG genre as a whole.
Which is funny because I logged over 300 hours into the game.
I have to admit, I've never liked the visual aesthetics in the FF games. Never been properly motivated to play them, however, since I've yet to find a JRPG with gameplay that I enjoy (turn-based is generally not my favorite).