Well, I'm partial to the old-school FFs -- FFIV is a simpler game overall but with amazingly likeable characters and a plot that really sucks you in; FFVI is more complex and complicated, which are both its strengths (tons of awesome backstory! tons of amazing characters! tons of sidequests!) and its weaknesses (tons of characters to keep track of! second half of the game can be 75% skipped which means you miss out on valuable story!). If they've got any favorable sense of nostalgia, one of those isn't a bad bet.
Out of the newer games, I think FFX is a decently good choice -- it's very easy to figure out the gameplay at first (for newbies) but then can get as complicated as you want at the end via the Sphere Grid, the story's pretty compelling (good depth without being omfg overwhelming, IMO), and the characters are, as a general whole, likeable and interesting.
VII isn't a bad place to start either, but I'm so reluctant to suggest it because the fandom has kind of ruined the game for me. In its defense, however, it has some amazing characters and an excellently driven plot line (with only a few WTF plotholes, but let's face it - plotholes are as traditional to FFs as Chocobos and Cids), and Materia offers some really kick ass gameplay tweaking.
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Out of the newer games, I think FFX is a decently good choice -- it's very easy to figure out the gameplay at first (for newbies) but then can get as complicated as you want at the end via the Sphere Grid, the story's pretty compelling (good depth without being omfg overwhelming, IMO), and the characters are, as a general whole, likeable and interesting.
VII isn't a bad place to start either, but I'm so reluctant to suggest it because the fandom has kind of ruined the game for me. In its defense, however, it has some amazing characters and an excellently driven plot line (with only a few WTF plotholes, but let's face it - plotholes are as traditional to FFs as Chocobos and Cids), and Materia offers some really kick ass gameplay tweaking.