Arena

The Arena is an area that appears in Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu but changes drastically in Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 and keeps this form through to Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, they 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 6 games. It is mainly used to train your characters and gain money in the process. They usually appear in town maps.

You can enter the arena in Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu, however 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 you die in the arena you are still left with 1hp on the map. Unlike future arenas the enemies you fight are all preset, so all the characters will fight the same enemies.

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. However, this option can be extremely risky.

Arena Abuse
However, some people have taken to the hobby of "Arena Abuse". To Arena abuse, the player uses people in the arena constantly until they are weak, so then they can get healed by the Priest using a Heal staff. If the player didn't bring a Priest, then a Vulnerary will work, but not as well, though. The player constantly heals the people 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. Because 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. However, some people find the game too easy to beat after doing this and believe that it takes the challenge out of the game.

An "arena gauntlet" is when the player constantly use 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 Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon makes it easier to do an "arena gauntlet" in one turn, although this can be risky.