I just don't see the point of using Nino when you already have Erk, Lucius, Canas and Pent... I mean, unless you REALLY like her.

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Stats-wise, Nino is the best character in the game and maybe across all of the GBA games. Every single stat is great aside from Defence, and if trained to the same level as any other unit she will almost always outclass them. I think she's easiest to train in Hector Normal Mode, where there's no frantic rush but still a decent number of chapters between her joining and the end of the game. I personally also really like her part in the game's story, specifically her support with Legault and her conversations with Lloyd, Linus and Sonia.

I do agree that Canas equipped with Luna is infinitely more useful, however. Why would you need anyone but Canas? :D

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Yeah, but she's only really useful for, like, 2 chapters. That's why I don't see the point in using her, because I could just use Pent and get the same results. But hey, to each their own! :3
I'm not a big fan of magic users (not counting staff users) not named Levin, Olwen, Asvel, Arthur, Sety, Merric or Linde, anyway.

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No love for Lute or Lilina? :( I love the female Sages and their crazy magic growths.

I think I actually prefer magic users to physical users, considering how so many enemy units have virtually no Res, and how later in the game any of your units without high Res will suffer from status afflictions and long-distance spells.

Agreed on Levin though. Him and his lovely Holsety~

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Besides, the majority of the time, magic users don't miss (unlike a few I can name which sometimes miss with their Hand-Axes)... ">>

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The thing I don't like about magic users is that they're waaay too fragile. I like units that can take many hits during enemy phase, and obviously magic units can't do that (well, besides Levin and Sety and their crazy dodging skills... that's why they're my favourite magic users ♥). It's just a matter of playing styles :3
As for status staves, they can be annoying, but with a bunch of Pure Waters and Restore/Barrier staves I usually have no problem.

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Huh, I never had any trouble with status effects. :V

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Well they can't have it ALL.

The thing I dislike about them is the Priests who can only heal at the start leads to a very slow growth.

Especially a shame in the Sacred Stones where their next class was the Bishop with it's broken 'slayer' ability.

Though I never had trouble with mage's frailty, normally they have too much range advantage, speed and power to be on the receiving end of a counterattack. Moreso in shadow dragon where magic resistance didn't exist.

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Raise your hand if you bought Shadow Dragon because it had Marth. *raises hand* Other than that, I bought it because it was a Fire Emblem game. In a DS. *fangasm* The game was great, it took advantage of the DS' mechanics, but it got boring after that chapter where there are a lot of Wyvern Knights.

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For me I got tired in that level with that ballista fellow who you can recruit with his sister....who flies a pegasus....and he has no qualms about firing on....who can't reach him easily.

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You know, I thought Marth would have been as awesome as he was in Brawl/Melee. He was kind of bland in Shadow Dragon. Also, I tried playing online, but so many people cheat online, it's not even funny. Like, you can't honestly have me believe that you have a maxed out Marth at everything, including Magic! He doesn't even have the ability to class change!

It was kind of opposite for Ike in Brawl. Ike was a cheat in Brawl, but he was pretty balanced in Path of Radiance. In fact I never had to worry about Ike dying in the game at all. But Hector beats him any day. I think the next Super Smash Bros should feature Hector.

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Man the cheating kinda sucks...hacked characters are blegh.

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Oh god yes I remember that chapter. Don't really remember if it was his sister or not, but there was basically no way to get her over without being in range of the ballista. Every single time I would end up with just the ballista guy and the pegasus knight hanging on the edge of his range, having killed every other enemy, and every single time the pegasus knight would die. He never even tried to target anyone else :(

Also it was a little too short for my liking, or maybe that was just me. But I ended the game with most of my units only at level 4 or 5 promoted. Can you move your units from FE11 to FE12, or does it not work like that?

It's so annoying when the person you're trying to recruit kills the recruiter. Especially if the recruiter is a healer, like Priscilla/Raven, Natasha/Joshua, Clarine/Klein.

The magic people I use seem to dodge and critical a lot (especially the girls, for some reason). Apart from the game-breaking Luna, I'm really fond of Valkyries and light magic. Supporting Lucius and Serra together was tons of fun, they dodged every hit and criticalled every other turn.

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NatashaxJoshua

Though I actually think he didn't attack her for my game and he's not really hard to pin down.
Made me curious considering how Joshua later becomes important to the plot is he one of the few that actually survives when they are defeated?

Though I'm pretty sure the Pegasus Knight and the Ballista dude were brother sister or girlfriend boyfriend or something like that.

Somehow I managed to recruit him....even if I never ever used Ballista.

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Actually, Ballista Dude (Jake) and that Pegasus Knight (Shiida/Caeda) are neither siblings nor lovers. They don't actually know each other.
You actually have to visit a certain house in the map where a girl (Anna) tells you that her boyfriend Jake is fighting with the enemy, but that he'll change sides if he sees a pretty girl or something like that. So that's why Shiida/Caeda can recruit him, even though they don't know each other.

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Thanks for reminding me XD I remember that house...musta twisted the memory of the boyfriend into that of being her boyfriend.

Think I managed to get through that game with everyone alive, revived the one guaranteed sacrifice at that one opportunity with the altar.

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About Joshua... I've never actually had anyone die in any of my runthroughs (read: always spent hours on each chapter resetting every time someone died), but it'd be pretty interesting to see what happens if you do kill Joshua. They might do the whole FE7 thing with "Oh, I wounded my arm and cannot fight, but I'll still tag along" and they're still around for the cutscenes, but Joshua is on the enemy side... hm.

Now I want to know what happens if Matthew or Oswin die in Hector mode. Poor Hector.

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L'Arachel pulls that trick if she gets beaten.
Which is fair enough would be sad to see someone so bright and happy have to give a death speech.

I don't normally settle for people dying either XD.

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I know Oswin retreats if he gets killed, but I'm pretty sure Matthew and Joshua are dead for good, and the scenes where they're involved change to match that.

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Well it would kind of be a spoiler to Joshua's identity he stayed alive, hinting at him being important SOMEWHERE down the line.
Shame though Joshua was actually kinda important in that bit.

Just tears me up when you go through the character list after beating the game and see 'X Died in X' though.

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I'm actually one of the people who cheat death, I really don't like dealing with that, so I just go through and start over on that one level.

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Note: The points below refer to "Fire Emblem: GBA" overall, but some aspects will affect all Fire Emblem games.


A good tip to note from the start is the characters you recruit in their secondary class will be strong, but generally not as strong as one you'd train up from the lower levels and promote yourself. For instance, Harken is a powerful Hero you can recruit near the later chapters, but if you train Raven from the start and promote him to a Hero, his stats will be better than Harken's. If you have the option to, take full advantage of the chapters that have a boss that doesn't move and use the arena. Set a few healers nearby, and remember to press 'B' if your character is even remotely close to dying. You'll lose the money but you won't lose a character forever. If you are at a disadvantage in the arena, take note of the enemy and allow an advantageous ally to fight them- the opponent will not switch until a few turns are up.

If you can, use the arena and allow your characters to grow to Level 20 before promoting them. The upgrades to their stats will be quite useful during the later levels, so grind while you have the chance.

Classes, yes. There are some useful classes and there are some ridiculously pointless ones. It is safe to note that a majority of enemies in this game will use axes, swords and magic. There are soldiers that use lances, but they are among the slowest and weakest of the enemies in this game- even archers and knights can generally get 2 counterattacks in on them.

Having said the above, here are some tips I think are useful:


1. While playing Lyn's story, level up as much as you can. Don't level grind everyone, but instead pick out the useful characters and rescue the weaker characters while grinding if you must. Both Sain and Kent are overshadowed later by Lowen, so don't bother too much with them. Of course, level up Lyn as quickly as possible. In order of appearance of Lyn's story, you'll want to train Florina, Matthew, Nils, and Lucius. You'll recruit these characters in their earlier stages, so they have large potentials for improvement. It should be noted that the levels and stats you gain in Lyn's story is transferred to Eliwood's story when you meet them again.

[Note] Why those characters? Here's why:

Florina - You recruit her early on, so her stats will improve beyond her sisters, who are already high-leveled when you recruit them. She'll promote to a Falcoknight, giving her the ability to use a sword and also gain ridiculous amounts of speed and evasion.

Matthew - Basically a thief you meet relatively early. When he gains enough levels, he'll gain insane amounts of evasion. The one problem with his promotion comes with the promotion item, the Fell Contract. The earliest you can possibly get one of these is Chapter 26x, the level after you get Nino. See how late this is? The item promotes Matthew to Assassin status, which is insanely useful, so level grind him all you can. Do enough grinding and he will easily surpass the powerful Jaffar.

Nils - No big reason. Nils is actually quite useless aside from allowing one character to move/attack again in a turn, but he is unable to class change. The reason you would train him is to allow him to fend for himself in the Eliwood stages where he is required to be in the battle. This especially refers to Chapter 30, where Limstella and her endless morphs can easily take him out if you aren't cautious. Plus, the fact that you can place Nils anywhere and allow anyone to move again is quite nice, but only if he has a high enough evasion and defense to survive an attack.

Lucius - A monk that will easily surpass the Bishop Renault that you get way too late into the game. He also has a high evasion and resistance, so train him early on and promote him to a Bishop, who can use light magic and staves.


2. Swap between weapons. If a character can use multiple weapons, switch often between them and allow all weapon classes to grow in level. Later in the game, you'll start acquiring high-level weapons, and they'll be useless in the hands of a character who doesn't have the experience to use it. Basically, you'll want to at least get all the weapon classes to 'C' level, as they are required to use the Killing weapons- weapons that increase your chance to perform a critical hit. For magic and staves, get them to 'S'.


3. Don't bother recruiting every character. Clutter increases with too many characters, and there way too many in this game. You could actually kill the people you don't need and gain experience for a character you do need. For example, Heath the Wyvern Knight is pretty useless so attack him with an archer to have them gain a lot of EXP.


4. Always keep your useful characters fully equipped. The less useful characters also have weapons- take them away and give them to your useful characters! This is especially important for your Lords, who definitely need to be leveled up as much as possible.


5. Lure out piles of enemies with a high evasion/defense character. When you are out of an enemy's attack range, they will not budge. Get a good unit in to draw them out, but make sure they're not overpowered enough to steal all the kills and EXP. Once flushed out, rush them with your other characters to distribute EXP.


6. As mentioned earlier, level up your Lords as quickly as possible. At any point in the game, the death of a Lord will immediately result in a game over. Since there are levels in which your Lords must participate, you cannot leave them at a low level. Eliwood is often placed in the back, but there is a stage where only him and 4 others are allowed to fight. As they are all separated as well, Eliwood will easily die in the fight. Same goes for Lyn and Hector.


7. Try to get all the side-quests. Side-quests not only provide you with extra EXP, but will often have an arena to utilize, or a new character to recruit. A great example is in Chapter 13x, where you will gain Merlinus early. With each stage you defeat with his tent still safe, it will gain a level and eventually be able to move around as well.


8. Kent says to use the forest and forts, so do it! The forests will give you a higher evasion, avoiding damage in the first place. Fortresses not only have the same effect, but will also slightly heal your units each turn.


9. Move quickly. If you're wanting to dawdle and train in an arena, do it when only the boss is left. Often, you'll have to protect an individual or reach a valuable treasure chest, and if you sit around, the enemy will reach them first.


10. During Eliwood/Hector's campaign, also consider the useful and less useful characters. In order for Eliwood's story, you should train Eliwood, Rebecca, Lowen, Hector, Matthew, Guy, Priscilla, Lyn, Florina, Raven, and Lucius.

[Note] Once again, why?


Eliwood - As forementioned, Eliwood is a Lord, and needs to fight in almost every chapter. The chapters near the end of the game has insanely tough enemies that will target him from far away, and if he is easily killed, you will lose the game. He'll promote to a Knight Lord, who can use lances and move farther on his steed.

Rebecca - You get her at Level 1, which gives you a full range of upgrades. Once she promotes to a Sniper, her evasion will be insanely high, making her a good decoy or distance attacker.

Lowen - Marcus may seem like a good choice, but Lowen will easily surpass him if you work up to the Paladin level. At the Paladin level, Lowen has a good range of axes, swords and lances, making him a powerful attacker.

Hector - Same reason, but he'll only be forced to fight in some chapters. Still, his accuracy isn't great to begin with, so level him up and get his ridiculously high defense even higher. He'll become a Great Lord with the Heaven Seal, who can use swords and take a ton of punishment.

Guy - This guy is possibly the best character in the entire game to have. Level him up quickly and promote him to the Swordmaster rank. Swordmasters have a ridiculously high evasion, speed, attack strength, and critical ratio. Basically, give a high level Swordmaster a Killing Edge or Wo Dao, and he'll score critical hits 45-50 percent of the time, and avoid almost any attack.

Priscilla - I left out all the anima mages just for Priscilla. She won't gain as much as some of the other mages, but with her early ability to master staves and move on horseback is insanely useful. Once promoted to the Valkyrie class, she can also defend herself with anima magic. Basically, she'll have the same abilities as a Sage but can move around on horseback, have a higher HP, and greater evasion.

Lyn - Should mention that Lyn will promote to a Blade Lord, probably the most useful of the Lords. Not only is Lyn very speedy, but she has a great critical hit ratio and evasion as well. As a Blade Lord, she can also use bows, which is insanely useful.

Raven - You'll recruit Raven with Priscilla, who in turn should recruit Lucius. Complicated, right? Anyways, Raven is decently well rounded as a Mercenary, but his it's his promotional class that will dish out the pain. As a Hero, Raven will have a high strength, evasion, critical ratio, and defense. Give him a Brave Sword to attack up to 4 times in one turn.



Of course, this really isn't how you have to play. I'd say I'm a veteran of this game and just wanted to share what I thought worked best.

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Quite a....lengthy tutorial there xD

Though I would recruit every character just for the challenge and fun of having a massive roster even if I miss some...plus death speeches are sad.

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There's actually a 'good' reason to grind Nils. He has to be above a certain level, what level escapes me, but you can't get to a secret map unless he's at said level.

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Is that so? I was quite unaware of this- and here I thought I had gone to every level, seems I must have missed one.

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!!! You missed out on Chapter 19xx? That contains, like, half the story in FE7 XD

It's only available in Hector Mode. When you play through Lyn mode, you have to get Nils to be above level 8, I think. Then on Chapter 19x in Hector Mode, which is a Kishuna chapter, you have to kill Kishuna, which is pretty difficult as he leaves a turn after he's hit. That unlocks Chapter 19xx. :)

And bits where I'd disagree with your lovely guide -

Ehh... very debatable. I think most would say that they're at least equal, and Sain and Kent get a head start in the Lyn chapter, so it's not such a good idea to just ditch them. That being said I personally never really use paladins anyway.


Although I like recruiting everyone for the sake of perfection, it is probably okay to miss out/kill some of the recruits later in the game. Heath, however, is most certainly not useless, and is very much worth the risk of getting him to join. (Also Matthew's strength is a bit too low to have him 'easily surpass' Jaffar.) But this is all just arguing about characters and won't lead us anywhere :P


Focus on your lords... but don't level them up TOO quickly. Like the thieves, the lords promote ridiculously late in the game, and although you'll definitely want to have them at Level 20 by the time you reach that point, most of the time your lords will be maxed out far before that. And then you'll just be forced to drag them around maps and trying not to have them kill anyone, which would waste EXP. (Like Roy in FE6. Dear lord.)


Yes, this is a good strategy, but be careful when defending. A unit that is too strong can be more at risk than a weaker one - this is a problem that happens especially with heroes (and Hector). If a unit is very strong, they will keep and keep on killing enemies when defending, not only sapping experience but making it more and more likely that they will get hit.

A weaker unit that isn't capable of one-shotting an enemy (but not so weak that they'll get killed!) will block the enemy's progress instead of killing them all, so you have greater control over how you're going to attack. This is why occasionally, if you have an archer or healer who is great at dodging, you could use them to block an advance whilst picking the enemy off at your own leisure.

Of course if your unit is incredibly incredibly own, you can just put him anywhere.

Why (FE6) Swordmasters are awesome, even without support bonuses:
> turn passes >
(I think I already posted that in some thread, but I feel it demonstrates a point and it makes me happy :D)

And a final tip - SUPPORT. Support bonuses are incredibly useful, even gameplay-wise, yet they're something very many players miss out on. People complain about how hard they are to get, but I find it easier to fight in terms of support pairings or chains, always keeping two characters together.

Basically, if you continually stand two compatible people next to each other when they fight (it normally takes at least 60 turns, I think), you can unlock conversations and increase their support 'rank'. If they have an achieved a support, then the characters' stats will go up when they fight within three spaces of each other (how much depends on affinity and other such stuff). An A-support between two characters will bump up their crit rate by about 25%, which makes a huge difference, especially as you can get people up to A support quite early in the game. Also supports make for cute joined endings and give the game its depth and great characterization. So support!

Whoo, long post. I too consider myself to be a 'veteran' of this game, heh.

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Last edited by Midnight Jasper on Sun Jul 17, 2011 12:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That actually sounds like a prerequisite I have fulfilled before- would Chapter 19xx happen to be in a castle with a large amount of "fog of war"? I'm getting vague memories of it since I didn't really play Hector's story as much as Eliwood's.

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Um, it's sort of half-outside half-in-some-ruins, but there is fog of war. http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2 ... f/19xx.png

A pretty big twist is revealed in Chapter 19xx, so I consider it to be quite memorable:

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Though it's shameful, I eventually wound up cheating to kill Kishuna on 19x on Hector's Hard Mode. I would've had to have ridiculous luck with all of my units to kill him, and that just wasn't happening.

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Ah yes, I have played that level, guess I wasn't completely aware that it was Nils affecting the sidequest. All the other sidequests are based on how quickly you beat a level or how the levels are spread out around your units and the such. Thanks for the clarification. ;)

Kishuna is a pain- Don't use low accuracy units like Hector, but surround him with your weaker, accurate units. They'll probably get 2 hits in, and then your magic/bow users can form a ranged perimeter around him as well.

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Ooh, looks like I came to this late! I love Fire Emblem. I've played 7,8,9,10,11 and a little bit of 4, but then my computer crashed and I lost it and haven't re-downloaded the ROM since...

Yeah, Shadow Dragon was ew. Radiant Dawn should really only be played after Path of Radiance, but it definitely has problems.The problem with RD is that it's too epic. Yes, that's right. TOO epic. It becomes less of a workable FE game since after every so many maps, you switch to a different main character and a different army. The armies merge by the end, but this means some characters aren't in play for very long and get left behind and outclassed. Jill is one I remember, but apparently she's pretty useful if you really load the bonus exp into her. Too many huge battles (some lasted hours. I'd go and fix a sandwich or something during the enemy phases of larger battles, because those could take upwards of five minutes) and too many returning characters. I swear, EVERYONE from PoR can and will come back. I can count the number of notable new characters with my fingers. And I don't like the new buff Ike. xD It had really good villains, and a couple of really good plot twists. But it has TOO MANY plot twists and not all of them are good and it eventually gets tiring. Not to mention for most characters there's triple tiers...crazy...
I remember the laguz kings, Ike, Elincia, Shinon, and Haar becoming ridiculously strong. Everyone else eventually stood by the wayside as those guys tore it up. Especially Shinon! What happened to the awesomeness that was Rolf???? Shinon became such a beast in RD. He can clear maps by himself once he gets to third-tier. And with crossbows he can actually hit adjacent enemies! Insane...

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Alright, the Nintendo conference was last night. And we've got Fire Emblem 3DS out of the mix.

All I know right now is that it's an 'original game' and features a 2 on 1 battle mode. Weather this is 2 'player' or 2 'Playable Character' is unknown at this point.

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The new game looks pretty good. The character designs aren't very Fire Emblem-ish, but I like them (although I kinda miss the Thracia 776 sprites... they were among the best in the series, IMO). The animations look good, and the graphics are okay; nothing too fancy, but that's to be expected from the series. Also, it seems the sprites change facial expressions now! Finally.
Also, the critical hits are different. It seems the character's artwork flashes for a second when they get a critical hit, which is kind of cool.

I hope this game's Jeigan sucks (I think his name is Fredrick?). I mean, we haven't had a bad Jeigan since... ever. And by bad I mean "unusable after the first eight or so chapters" bad, not Marcus bad. Titania and Seth (and Sigurd, although he was the main character) were cool, but it's no fun when we get an amazing character from chapter 1.
The gameplay looks pretty much the same, except apparently two characters can attack at once now. I wonder if it's something that's available from the start... I assume it has something to do with supports or bonds (it'd be kind of cheap if you could do it from the get-go).

Anyway, I'm excited that we're getting a new game, especially since it's set in a new continent and it isn't a remake (or a prequel/sequel, although I never expected one).

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This pretty well justified my 3DS for me (though I would have been even more hyped by a new Advance Wars.) Here's hoping it crosses the pond.

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Yaaay~!
I hope there are supports

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I am EXTREMELY hyped for FE3DS. Even though there's no Reyson, so skulls will be broken.

Another game for my super-sexy blue 3DS.

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Fire Emblem 3DS: another reason to get a 3DS. Well, it will also increase the number of FE games I can play.

I can't wait for the Hacking community to get up to speed, Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn was a BLAST playing havoc with the skills. Since the 3DS has an SD Card slot like the Wii, should make it fun.

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This. It shall be done, I swear it! Once I figure out how to do it...

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Could someone link me to the FE 3D page, please?

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