Nioh is a massive game. Reviewing it took around 60 hours. Speedrunner Distortion2 puts myself and everyone to shame with his world record run, which clocks in just over an hour and a half.
Distortion2 holds the third place world record in Dark Souls 3 and has been blasting his way through Resident Evil 7, where he holds second place in the Any% category. Switching to the frantic samurai action in Nioh, he completes all the main story missions with a time of 1:36:51. As of publication, it is the current world record.
How does he do it? One of the biggest equalizing factors are magical talismans. Nioh allows players to craft a variety of powerful spells including a devastating sloth spell that slows bosses to a crawl.
Stacking armor debuffs and sloth on the enemy, Distortion2 combines it with elemental buffs and use of the dangerous carnage talisman which grants him a powerful attack increase at the cost of lowering his defense.
All of the status effects give a considerable advantage. At one point, he even uses his bare fists to punch a boss to death. However, Distortion2 largely favors the fast attacking kusarigama for the majority of the run and uses its special techniques to tear through bosses at an absurd pace.
It doesn’t always work out: he dies a heartbreaking death to Okatsu and stumbles during the end game bosses rush but most of the time foes are carved up in seconds flat.
It’s a damn good run and definitely worth the watch. The game is still young and as new optimizations, shortcuts, and glitches are found, I imagine Distortion2 is only going to blaze an even faster trail.