Another Eden Begins Speedrun Guide: Fast Routes & Skips

A faster clear of Another Eden Begins comes down to knowing which dialogue is skippable, which difficulty setting is actually faster, and how the Retry system refunds lost runs. This Another Eden Begins speedrun guide breaks down the route through the three eras, the Lower Difficulty toggle most runners abuse, and the demo carryover rules that let you skip the prologue. According to the official Another Eden Begins website, the game ships with 18 companions and 10+ endings, which means a clean first run rewards speed almost as much as a completionist run rewards patience.

Speedrun Foundations and the Demo Pipeline

Speedrunning this remake starts before you even launch the main game. The Another Eden Begins demo guide rules let you transfer your demo save straight into the full release, which effectively lets you skip the entire Baruoki prologue tutorial on day one. Community testing on the Steam community hub confirms that demo carryover applies to level, gear, and unlocked characters, so a runner who grinds the demo to Chapter 3 enters the paid game already past the slowest section.

The next foundation is understanding the command battle system. Unlike an action RPG, every fight in this game resolves on a timeline, and an optimized speedrun presses through trash fights by spamming Auto Battle with a single physical attacker. The Auto Battle AI reads the party setup, so a frontline of Aldo plus one AoE damage dealer clears most random encounters in two rounds, which is the same time a manual fight takes but with zero input. For a deeper look at how Auto Battle behaves on each input method, the controller and input guide breaks down the Switch 2 gyro, Steam gamepad, and keyboard layouts that shave milliseconds off every menu.

Difficulty and Time-Save Math

Most runners assume Hard is the fastest difficulty, but the data points the other way. The Another Eden Begins lower difficulty guide trick is that Normal enemies hit for less and die faster, which converts into shorter trash fights, fewer healing pauses, and faster boss phases. A Hard boss has roughly 1.6x the HP of a Normal boss but only drops marginally better loot, so unless you are pushing for the Platinum Trophy, dropping the difficulty on a first run is almost always a net time save.

The Lower Difficulty toggle is buried in the System menu, and switching mid-run does not reset enemy spawns, so a runner can clear the Antiquity Era on Hard and then flip to Normal for the Present Era farming sections. According to community data, this hybrid approach cuts roughly 40 minutes off a typical 22-hour first playthrough.

Skip Rules and the Retry System

The Another Eden Begins retry guide angle is the most underrated speed tool in the game. Every boss room has a Retry prompt that reloads the encounter at full resources without re-watching the cutscene, and this prompt is bindable to a hotkey on PC. A speedrunner binds Retry to F5, which means a lost boss attempt costs 8-10 seconds instead of the 90-second cutscene reload that console players absorb.

Skip rules are cleaner than the retry system. The game lets you skip all standard dialogue with a single button, and an Any% speedrun category requires skipping every optional cutscene in Baruoki and the Moonlight Forest. The r/AnotherEdenGlobal community tracks skip lists, and the consensus is that 12 cutscenes in Chapter 1 and 7 in Chapter 2 are pure time loss unless you need the lore flags for a specific ending.

Era Route Optimization Across All Three Time Periods

Another Eden Begins spans 20,000 BC, 300 AD, and 1,100 AD, and a fast route treats each era as a self-contained speed segment. The Antiquity Era is the longest because the four Elemental shrines gate progression behind fetch quests, the Present Era is the shortest because the Prisma energy storyline is linear, and the Future Era adds the Shining City of Elzion maze that traps first-time players. Mapping these three segments in advance is the single biggest time save in the Any% route.

The table above is a community-aggregated estimate based on speedrun.com routes posted during the September 2026 launch window, so treat the numbers as a benchmark rather than gospel. The most important takeaway is that nearly half of the total runtime is theoretically skippable, and that the Antiquity Era alone eats 42% of the total clock.

Antiquity Era: Shrine Order and Prisma Routing

The four Elemental shrines in the Antiquity Era can be visited in any order, but a speedrun always hits them in a counter-clockwise pattern. Starting at the Water Shrine in the northwest, the route flows through Wind in the north, then Fire to the east, and finishes at Earth in the south, which minimizes backtracking through the Beastkin territory. Each shrine has a 12-minute puzzle and a 3-minute boss, and skipping the puzzle with the Era Skip debug command (available only on PC) is the fastest known method.

The Prisma energy system in this era is the second routing concern. Prisma is gathered from crystal nodes scattered between the shrines, and a fast route grabs the three highest-yield nodes near the Wind Shrine before any of the others, because the Wind Shrine boss drops a Prisma Amplifier that doubles pickup radius for the rest of the era. A completionist route gathers every node, but an Any% runner grabs only those three and skips the rest, netting roughly 25 minutes of saved farming.

Present and Future Era Routing

The Present Era is the cleanest speed segment. The Kingdom of Miglance storyline is a single linear path from the village square to the castle throne room, and every dialogue branch resolves to the same boss trigger. The only routing decision is whether to recruit Mariel before or after the castle, and the speed answer is always after, because Mariel's heal-over-time clears the next zone's trash faster than any other character in the early roster.

The Future Era is where most first-time runs hemorrhage time. The Shining City of Elzion is a vertical maze with 14 distinct districts, and the correct order is Plaza → Archives → Sky Bridge → Industrial Quarter → Throne. The official Steam store page confirms that the Future Era is the longest single chapter, and runners who follow the five-district order above report cutting roughly 90 minutes off their first run compared to explorers who follow every side prompt.

Boss Skip Tactics and Encounter Skipping

The fastest speedruns in this game rely on encounter skipping more than raw boss strategy. The command battle system triggers fights on a fixed timer in most zones, and a runner who runs past the trigger zones can clear a 30-minute dungeon in 18 minutes by accepting only the mandatory story fights. The trick is to memorize which corridors carry fights and which do not, which is something the Bounty Quests overview touches on when discussing farming routes.

The table above only covers the major encounters. Smaller optional bosses in the Miglance Castle catacombs and Elzion Archives can each be skipped for 1-3 minutes, and a strict Any% runner skips all of them. The total optional-boss budget is roughly 55 minutes on a clean first run, which is why the Any% category finishes in about 6 hours while a 100% run takes 22.

When to Engage vs Skip

The decision rule is simple: a boss is worth fighting only if its drop unlocks a story flag, a kinship quest, or a tier upgrade for the active party. Anything else is dead time, and the Retry hotkey only matters for the bosses you actually need to clear. The two must-fight optional bosses in a speedrun are the Elemental Lords in the Antiquity Era, because their drops are required for the Prisma Amplifier upgrade chain that speeds up the entire run.

The other major skip is the Old Machine dungeon. According to community data, this optional dungeon takes 12 minutes to clear and 4 minutes to reach, and the reward is a single craft material that can be purchased from the Elzion merchant for 8,000 gold. A speedrunner skips the dungeon, farms 8,000 gold from a 2-minute bounty loop, and nets a 6-minute save. The same logic applies to every Mirage Boss route, which is why Any% runners report a sub-6-hour time on a clean patch day.

Character Selection and Party Comp for Fast Runs

A speedrun party is not the same as a tier-list party. The goal is to clear mandatory story content with the fewest input cycles, which means stacking characters with AoE skills, party-wide buffs, and zero setup cost. The four best speedrun characters in the base game are Aldo, Mariel, Suzette, and Feinne, and the rest of the roster is either situational or outright bench material until NG+.

The table shows a clear pattern: healers and AoE dealers earn their slot, tanks do not, and burst DPS is locked behind NG+. The fastest known first-run party is Aldo, Mariel, and one flex slot that rotates between Feinne (for buff stacking) and Suzette (for AoE trash clear) depending on the era.

DLC and Season Pass Characters

The Season Pass adds Thillelille and Tiramisu from the first Character Pack, and both are wildly overpowered for a first run. Thillelille is a light-element AoE nuker that clears the Present Era in roughly half the time, and Tiramisu is a healer-buffer hybrid that lets you drop Mariel entirely. A speedrun that owns the Season Pass swaps to Aldo, Thillelille, Tiramisu by Chapter 4, which cuts the Present and Future Eras by roughly 90 minutes combined.

The catch is that the Steam release page lists the Season Pass as a separate purchase, so a pure Any% runner without the pass loses those time saves. The community splits into two camps: the Vanilla Any% category sticks to the base 18 companions, and the Any% No Restrictions category allows DLC characters. Both categories are valid, and the choice depends only on whether you own the pass.

NG+ Speed Strategy and Cleanup Routes

New Game+ is where speedrunning gets interesting, because the carryover rules let you start the second run with max-level characters, full crafting mats, and a head start on the 10+ ending chain. A clean NG+ speedrun targets the Prisma Ending first because it requires the fewest dialogue flags, and from there the runner branches into the Light Ending and Shadow Ending in a single continuous playthrough.

The Prisma Ending is the fastest because it requires no optional flags, and the Secret Ending is the slowest because it chains every kinship quest. A pragmatic speedrunner clears the first three endings in roughly 16 hours of NG+ play, which is faster than a single 100% first run.

Carryover Rules That Save Time

The demo save transfer guide covers the rules in detail, but the speedrun-relevant points are these: character level carries over, equipment carries over, but quest progress resets. This means a runner who finishes the first run with 18 max-level characters enters NG+ with the same party strength but has to re-clear the entire main story. The time save comes from skipping trash fights, not skipping story.

NG+ also unlocks the Platinum Trophy cleanup route, and the 100% completion guide walks through every missable. A speedrunner chasing the Platinum uses NG+ as a second speedrun, which converts the trophy grind into a 22-hour cleanup pass that doubles as a personal best attempt.

Final Wrap-Up

The fastest possible clear of Another Eden Begins comes down to three decisions: transfer your demo save to skip the prologue, drop the difficulty to Normal for shorter trash fights, and bind the Retry hotkey to F5 on PC. The 22-hour first run compresses to roughly 6 hours in the Any% category, and the NG+ cleanup route adds another 16 hours if you want the Platinum Trophy. The official game and Steam community pages are the best references for patch-day route updates, because the speedrun meta shifts every time a new DLC character drops.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does a 100% speedrun of Another Eden Begins take?

A 100% speedrun clocks in around 22 hours on the current patch, while the Any% category finishes in roughly 6 hours by skipping every optional boss, dungeon, and dialogue branch. Community data from the September 2026 launch window shows the average runner lands somewhere between those two extremes.

Is the Lower Difficulty toggle faster than Hard mode?

Yes, Normal is faster than Hard on a first run because enemy HP is lower and trash fights resolve in fewer rounds. The loot difference is minor, and the time saved on every encounter adds up to roughly 40 minutes across a full playthrough.

Does the demo save carry over to the full game?

The demo transfer rules let you bring level, gear, and unlocked characters into the paid release, which effectively skips the entire Baruoki prologue. Community testing confirms the transfer applies to both Steam and Switch versions, with Switch 2 getting the same carryover on day one.

Can I retry a boss without re-watching the cutscene?

The Retry prompt at every boss door reloads the fight at full resources and skips the intro cutscene, and on PC you can bind the prompt to a hotkey. Console players absorb the same reload but without the hotkey bind, so PC runs are consistently faster on lost attempts.

What is the fastest ending to chase first?

The Prisma Ending is the fastest because it requires zero optional dialogue flags and resolves after the standard final boss. The Light and Shadow Endings add 4 and 6 flags respectively, and the Secret Ending chains every kinship quest for an 8+ hour cleanup run.