PSA: Hang On to Those Rusted Weapons in Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Don’t be like me. Don’t get rid of all the rusted weapons you’ll pick up around the battlefields of Fire Emblem: Three Houses.

If you’ve been playing Nintendo’s latest tactical RPG / friendship simulator, you already know what I’m talking about. During each battle you’ll find occasional squares that have a mystical purple shimmer on top of them. If one of your units finishes a turn on those squares, you’ll get a new item, usually a weapon. They’ll generally be low-powered, whatever they are—mostly training weapons or rusty old pieces of junk. The temptation to sell those rusted-out swords and lances will be strong, even if you’ll get almost nothing in return; they aren’t useful in battle, and so they just wind up eating up some of your inventory slots. Who wants to lug garbage into war, or fill up their convoy with old scraps of metal?

The thing is, those pieces of trash can have some real potential within them. Much like how Fire Emblem games routinely introduce an especially young, weak or cowardly character, only to have them turn into one of the most powerful and valuable units in the game, some of these rusted weapons can wind up being far more useful than you’d ever expect.

You won’t know what they can become until you’ve unlocked the blacksmith in the Monastery’s marketplace. That happens a few hours into the game, after you’ve completed the “Forge the Way” quest for the blacksmith, which is a remarkably easy little jaunt to the top of a nearby staircase and back. Once you knock that off your list, the blacksmith’s shop will be open regularly, and they’ll be able to service all your weapon needs. That means fixing your dinged up blades, building you customized new weapons, or—and this is where we get back to the subject at hand—restoring rusted weapons to their former glory.

When you take a rusted weapon to the blacksmith, you’ll learn how powerful the weapon can actually be. And even though you might’ve picked them up as discarded junk on the battlefield, some of these forgotten scraps are actually really valuable. From higher level versions of standard arms, to enhanced weapons with boosted stats, all the way up to unique named weapons with powerful abilities, you can find all manner of useful gear on those battlefields.

Fortunately you can sort of figure out a rusted weapon’s potential before the blacksmith shop opens. If you open your inventory menu, highlight the item in question, and press the X button, it’ll give you a short description, listing what it can be restored to. If you do this you won’t have to save all the mess you hoard from the battlefield, just the stuff that’s actually worth something.

More Three Houses guides:
How to do a soft reset in Fire Emblem: Three Houses
How to recruit students in Fire Emblem: Three Houses
A guide to all of the lost times in Fire Emblem: three Houses