In most RPGs, a character's level reflects their overall degree of experience and largely dictates their performance capabilities on the field of battle. Despite its Musou gameplay backbone, Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes maintains its strategy role-playing game DNA strongly enough for leveling up to be a major component on the quest to unite Fodlan.
If leveling is so important, but Three Hopes sports such a massive cast, is there any chance that players will be able to keep their units evenly-leveled from start to finish? It will take some work, but it's quite doable — and you'll be grateful for the payoff later on, when huge numbers of your characters are fighting for their lives on the fields of war.
Updated July 4, 2022: We've updated this article to include a video guide that shows you the basics of how to level up quickly in Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes.
Training Instructor: Costly But Fantastic
By far the fastest way to grind out your army's levels in Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes is through the Training Instructor. Here, you can elevate anyone's level all the way up to whatever the current highest unit has reached. In many cases, this probably means Shez, so it's not unusual to find oneself playing catch-up with our mercurial protagonist taking the lead.
The downside, and there had to be a downside lest this blatantly break the game's flow, is that the gold cost per leveling sessions skyrockets over time. Gold isn't terribly difficult to come by in Three Hopes, but the Training Instructor's fees can and will break the bank even so.
There are ways to mitigate this to some extent. As you build the Training Facility, you will eventually have the option to reduce the costs involved in leveling exercises. You can do this up to three times, though on your first playthrough you will be limited to whatever the strongest-quality building materials happen to be in a given chapter. Don't expect to slim the fees down considerably until toward the end of the campaign.
Despite the huge financial disclaimer, it cannot be overstated just how well this works if you've got the coin to spare. A good rule of thumb is to at least try to keep your army within five levels of your most powerful character at all times. Hopefully, that won't come at nearly so steep a bill.
Record Keeper: Slow But Free
A handful of chapters into the story, you will unlock access to an important new NPC called the Record Keeper. Through the Record Keeper, you can replay most of Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes' battles, from the smallest skirmishes to the mightiest conflicts.
If you're hunting S-Rank rewards for every battle, the Record Keeper is your gateway to eventual perfection. By its very nature as an infinitely replayable set of maps, it's also quite handy for leveling up your Three Hopes pals. You're already familiar with the fight, so it shouldn't be as hard to rush through it with a lower-leveled character.
While fight after fight may wear you down, you won't have to pay a thing for this grinding method. In fact, you will accrue quite the tidy stock of gold and other resources.
Adjutants: A Nice Bonus Approach
There's another way to grind experience for a specific unit, and it's by assigning them to your active character as an adjutant. Doing so will admittedly deprive you of the maximum number of deployable units to give marching orders when needed, but on the flip side, your adjutant will enhance your active character's own strength and provide useful boosts.
Making a substantially weaker unit your adjutant can keep them safe and secure whilst still affording them the opportunity to earn a fair amount of experience points per battle. There's no reason not to take advantage of this feature, but you'll certainly want to regard it less as a one-stop experience shop and more as a constant bonus factor.