>>714538932 (OP)I started with FE8 because I randomly happened to have it on my 3DS due to the ambassador program, and I always had it on the back burner in my mind that I should try the series out, because like you I also thought Ike from Brawl was cool. I liked the game. I played the other two GBA titles and liked them as well. Nearly done with Thracia and I think it's okay. Tried some Awakening, being filtered by the character design might try it again later.
There are some version differences between the Jap and International releases (FE7 is the first internationally released game in the series), you also can't access all the difficulty options of FE6 and FE7 from the get-go. You can patch these things out if you want, but they're not a big issue overall.