Arena

The Arena (闘技場) (also known as Colosseum) is a building that first appears in Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Tsurugi, but changes drastically in Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu and but reverts to a form similar to that of its original apperance in Fire Emblem: Fūin no Tsurugi. Arenas do not appear in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance or Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, but then come back again in Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon; in all, they appear in 10 games. However, they are once again absent in Fire Emblem: Awakening. They are mainly used to train your characters and gain money in the process.

To enter the arena in Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu you must enter a castle and then select the arena from there. You can only use the arena up to seven times in a chapter, however if a character is defeated in the arena they are left with one hit point. Unlike arenas in the rest of the series, the enemies you fight are all preset, so all the characters will fight the same enemies. (which means you cannot do an "Arena Gauntlet") although having preset enemies does make it easier.

Arenas also appear in Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon. However, unlike the arenas in the Game Boy Advance games, the arenas in Shadow Dragon allow an option to use the arena again at the same turn once winning, thus allowing players to use the arena multiple times in one turn.

Somewhat like the Link Arenas, only units that can attack can enter the arena. When you enter a unit into the arena, you are given the option to wager an amount of gold. If you accept, your unit will do battle with an opponent. If your unit wins, you win even money on your wager, and gain some experience. If your unit dies, or you press the B Button to back out, you lose your wager.

The battle that takes place in an Arena works the same way as a battle in the field, except that instead of stopping once each unit has made their attack (or possibly two or four attacks), this process repeats until one unit dies, you retreat, or both units find themselves unable to damage the other. After each repetition, if you have pressed the B Button, the battle will end prematurely and you will lose your wager. Use this option to get your unit out if he or she is in serious danger of being killed.

Arena Abuse
However, some people have taken to the hobby of "Arena Abuse" one of the most commonly used Sources of Infinite Experience. To Arena Abuse, the player sends their units in the arena constantly until they are weak, so then they can get healed by the Priest using a Heal staff. If the player did not bring a user who can use staves, then a Vulnerary will work, but not as well. The player constantly heals the fighter up until the Heal staff breaks. Usually, all levels with an Arena have a Shop on the same map. The player notices this and buys as many Heal (or Mend, if the Heal staff is not sold there) staves as he or she can. Then the abuser repeats the process.

Since you get money from frequently winning at arenas, and that arena weapons are not the weapons you are equipped with, one can keep doing this until all units are level 20 and the abuser has enormous amounts of gold earned from the arenas. The process of arena abusing, without losing any units, is rather difficult and tedious.

An "Arena Gauntlet" is when the player constantly uses the arena without healing and not using some form of "random number generator" abuse. The option that allow players to go into another match in Shadow Dragon makes it easier to do an "Arena Gauntlet" in one turn, somewhat redeeming turncount, although this can be risky.

However, such method can destroy the tactics ranking in Fire Emblem: Fūin no Tsurugi and Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken, so such abuse is not advised on ranked runs.