Downloading Battle of the Eras Get a preconfigured copy of DOSBox and Battle of the Eras here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OvnhKWZvwnsdBSt2X4f1pw_uL27B3gL7/view?usp=share_link

Starting Battle of the Eras

To start BERAS, run DOSBox.exe, it will automatically start with all the correct settings. Controls:

Everything is setup for the keyboard because although BERAS can use a controller it’s not consistent and DOSBox’s controls setup is not great.

Controls: Arrows: Move Insert: High Punch Delete: Low Punch Home: High Kick EndL Low Kick Page Up: Block Page Down: Charge Enter: needed to navigate menus

Escape: Exit out Q: Exit while in character selection

Note that BERAS just checks to see what buttons are pressed, not if there’s been a release, so you can hold down everything for essentially turbo and it will input the command at the next polling.

Characters: All characters except XLX-2250 are viable for speedrunning (he crashes the game after 1 fight). However, Shadowsnake is minutes faster at a minimum because of the way things are programmed. Shadowsnake has a 2 frame low kick that has no knockback. Since the “I took damage” animation preempts the attack animation in this game, Shadowsnake’s low kick or any other fast attack can keep the enemy locked up. Shadowsnake’s low kick is currently the only attack found that also doesn’t cause a knockback, so you don’t have to readjust.

General Speedrun:

All characters are going to have a similar-ish speedrun, in that the goal is to charge in to the enemy and then infinite them until they give up. There are special moves (found in the \BERAS\BERAS.TXT file) but I never found them to be really useful. As an example (because it’s the only one I know off my head) I will detail the Shadowsnake priority:

At start of fight, press Page Down to charge into your opponent. This has a knockdown effect, so press left to close to the opponent. Once you’ve closed, hold Down+End until you win.

Seriously, it’s that simple, and that works on every opponent, even temporus. For the minotaur, the worm is too low for your charge, so you can omit that part.

Now, a general note on Temporus is that it looks like you’re not doing anything. As long as your score is going up? You’re hitting them.

All Fights: All fights category is playing through the game normally, playing all fights in the regular game.

any%: The game can be beaten faster by hitting Space after game creation while the game is doing the animation before the first fight. This will take you to the fight against Proto, after which you will be taken directly to temporus.

Congratulations! You’ve just speedran BERAS, and if you’ve mashed through the Temporus exposition, you’re somewhere around an 8:30 run!