I truly miss when Fire Emblem had stories like this and wasn't just "which warrior do you want to date??" Ike is a fantastic and perfectly written protagonist for the series, has to work to get where he is at the end of the game, and never loses the essence of who he is. The Black Knight is a gripping and intimidating rival. While this IS Ike's story, the side-characters really get a wonderful chance to shine in the support conversations. The story is thematically rich and interesting, and goes into how people learn to hate and how hard it is to stop that hate when you're brought up knowing nothing else. However, it contrasts that with the idea that hate, no matter how long it's been in your life, can be un-learned and make way for kindness. The story of a despot fighting a war he doesn't believe in for his own personal gain and his soldiers blindly following him is hauntingly relevant even to this day. This isn't simply a "war bad" story like 3H, but instead, it asks why wars are fought, who even benefits from them, how they can affect the innocent, and what it means to be a soldier. Ike, being one of the only protagonists in the series who literally has nothing special about him (he's not royalty, he's not a god, he's not a mythical creature) ends up being the greatest in the series, and despite being so young, leads an army with grace and strength because he knows it's the right thing to do. If modern FE could be this good, I'd have a lot more faith in the series.