Playing Nioh 3 to the End as a Loincloth-Clad Ninja: A Record of Every Boss Defeated on the First Attempt

The player first explains the game's setting. Since ancient times, the power of Amrita and guardian spirits have existed in this land and have been deeply entwined with human history. Here the player slips in a joke: "Only Koei Tecmo has realized the truth of this history."

The protagonist is Tokugawa Takechiyo, who, if all goes well, is set to inherit the position of shogun. During training, however, an eerie shadow swoops in, and the castle is thrown into chaos as it is attacked by a horde of yokai. Takechiyo tries to escape while still naked but is cornered by his younger brother Kunimatsu, who had been guiding the yokai in. At that moment, the guardian spirit Kusanagi emits a mysterious light, and Takechiyo escapes to another era. The phrase "saving Japan naked" in the video's title refers to the fact that the story was played through to the end with Takechiyo in this same state as in the opening.

Before the first boss, Yamagata Masakage, the player explains their approach to this playthrough. This installment offers two combat styles, Ninja and Samurai, and this time they will use the Ninja style.

The foundation of the Ninja style is back attacks. According to the player, the damage multiplier on Ninja back attacks is "ridiculously high," so the basic approach is to always get behind the enemy and attack. When there's distance between you, you use ninjutsu, because ninjutsu can drain the enemy's Ki without consuming your own. This flow of "break the enemy with status ailments and ninjutsu, then hit it from behind" becomes the template used in every boss fight that follows.

The player also touches on their recording policy. It seems every boss is designed to be rematchable at any time, but coming back later with advantageous abilities for a rematch would be "lame," so they show footage of the first time each boss was defeated. In the Yamagata fight, they land the finishing blow while ignoring whatever their guardian spirit Nekomata is saying, and defeat the boss.

Joining up with this era's Tokugawa Ieyasu, Takechiyo infiltrates Hamamatsu Castle, which has been turned into a hell, to save it, and purifies the wedges with the help of Kusanagi's power. Then Jakotsu-baba, a yokai who controls snakes, appears. The player explains that when a "heeeee" sound starts playing, it signals a yokai boss fight, and describes the boss's design, with its beaming grin, as "brimming with a spirit of entertainment."

In the Jakotsu-baba fight, the player uses the newly learned ninjutsu "Eerie Wind" to inflict a wind-element status ailment, hastening the enemy's Ki depletion. They switch weapons from the ninja sword they'd been using to tonfa, imbue them with the fire element, and stack a fire status ailment on top. The player explains that hitting an enemy in the "Chaos" state, in which multiple status ailments overlap, with a back attack greatly increases damage.

The next fight, against Baba Nobuharu, takes place while retaking Futamata Castle from the Takeda army. Here too, the player defeats the boss with the same template: inflict status ailments of three elements using ninjutsu and onmyo magic, then attack from behind.

At Mikatagahara, the Tokugawa army, attempting to strike the Takeda army from behind, is ambushed and struggles. Takechiyo, in nothing but a loincloth, rushes to the scene and fights Yamagata Masakage once again. The player inflicts status ailments with ninjutsu, knocks the boss down with a "Burst Counter," applies three-element Chaos, and finishes it with a back attack.

There are two fights against Takeda Shingen. In the first, the player swings the tonfa around to pry open the enemy's guard, knocks it down, puts it into the Chaos state with a back attack, and then "just a light stroke and it's over." In the rematch against Shingen, who has been revived by the power of Amrita and has cast off his human form, the player uses the ninjutsu "Utsusemi" to get behind him, applies two-element Chaos with onmyo magic, and finishes him off with a back attack.

Having dispelled the threat of the Sengoku period, Takechiyo leaps to a new era. With the naked Takechiyo in mind, the player comments that it "looks a little cold." The first to appear is Ōtengu, and the player slows its movements with a "Sloth Talisman" (a "slow-motion Ōtengu," as the player puts it) and defeats it by attacking from behind. However, right after the boss seems to be defeated, Minamoto no Yoshitsune appears and things take a turn. The player offers only a brief explanation of Yoshitsune: "Guys with blue eyes are good guys."

Hearing from Yoshitsune that the barriers protecting Kyoto have been defiled, Takechiyo travels around Heian-era Kyoto to purify the three barriers.

At the first barrier, Takechiyo fights Otoroshi. The player slows it with the Sloth Talisman, stops it in its tracks with a Burst Counter, further freezes its actions temporarily with the ninjutsu "Shadow Stitch," and attacks from behind during that opening. At the second barrier, Yoshitsune joins the battle, and they fight Kajiwara Kagetoki. The player jokingly calls the creature the enemy summons a "Pokémon," and after parrying its attacks, keeps up melee attacks aiming for lightning, water, and wind status ailments. Once the enemy is out of Ki, the player stops it with Shadow Stitch and settles the fight in one go from behind. At the third barrier, a "lower-pitched heeeee" plays, and the player predicts that a strong-looking yokai is on its way. The one that appears is Ibaraki-dōji, and the player whittles it down by summoning a Raijū to pit lightning against lightning, inflicting status ailments with the ninjutsu "Eerie Water," and stopping it with Shadow Stitch.

In the deepest part of hell, Yoshitsune tries to stop the atrocities of his older brother Yoritomo but is defeated. Then the naked Takechiyo appears, and the fight against Minamoto no Yoritomo begins. The player slows him with the Sloth Talisman while gradually building up status ailments with onmyo magic and ninjutsu, hits him with Shadow Stitch when he comes down to pin him in place, and defeats him by attacking from behind.

Guided by Amrita, Takechiyo leaps to another era and meets Himiko, who is gradually being consumed by power. The opponent fought here is Kusanagi. The player remarks that it seems stronger than their own guardian spirit, Kusanagi. Along the way, they obtain the "Weakening Talisman," which lowers enemy defense, making it possible to defeat enemies even more efficiently.

The next opponent is Himiko's younger brother, Hiruko. As the player explains, Hiruko was driven from the throne for attempting to use Amrita for military purposes, and out of a desire for revenge, he let the power of Amrita run wild, coming to wield an ominous power of destruction. The Hiruko fight has two phases; when his HP drops to half, he cloaks himself in the power of Hell Amrita. However, his movements during the phase transition are full of openings, and he's "just wiggling around," so the player gets behind him and attacks, as per the standard approach.

Story-wise, though, the power of Hell Amrita is too great for Takechiyo and the others to finish him off as they are now. Takechiyo seals Hiruko away and returns to the original era.

Back in the original era, Takechiyo fights his younger brother, Tokugawa Kunimatsu. The player says that Takechiyo has grown considerably stronger from traveling through the past, and assesses that, although Hiruko is possessing him, Kunimatsu himself is not much of an opponent.

But then Hiruko appears once again. Even though Takechiyo has grown somewhat stronger, he is still no match for Hiruko. The player laments, "It's hopeless, it's all over," and the story moves on to the next era.

At the place Takechiyo is sent to, Takasugi Shinsaku, who gave direction to the movement to overthrow the shogunate, is putting on a spectacular fight. The player determines that this is around the Bakumatsu period. Since Takasugi is opposed to the Tokugawa on the shogunate's side, a fight ensues. The player applies the Sloth Talisman and the Weakening Talisman, gets behind him, lands Shadow Stitch, and defeats him with the tonfa. Upon defeating him, the player recites Takasugi's verse: "To make interesting a world that is not interesting."

Having reconciled with Takasugi, Takechiyo and the others head to Honnō-ji. There, a woman who resembles Himiko is being held captive by something the player describes as "the kind of thing that'd show up in Princess Mononoke." In the fight against this yokai, Nuribotoke, the player says the following and shows their inputs in detail.

Every fight is so short that it might be hard to tell what I'm doing, so this time I'm going to explain things in detail

The steps and inputs shown on screen are as follows.

• "Sloth Talisman" (↑)
• "Weakening Talisman" (←)
• "Summoning Talisman: Ibaraki-dōji" (↓)
• "Ame no Shizuku" (L1+□)
• "Shadow Stitch" (R1+□)
• "Zesshō Sunkei: Heavy" (hold △)

The player applies the speed-reducing and defense-reducing talismans, summons Ibaraki-dōji, defeated in the Heian arc, with the Summoning Talisman, layers on onmyo magic and ninjutsu, stops the enemy with Shadow Stitch, and finally deals massive damage with a charged attack. Here, the player breaks down the flow that had been summed up in a single sentence in the earlier boss fights.

Having purified hell and saved Himiko, Takechiyo visits Mibu-dera to strike down the remnants of the Shinsengumi. As the player explains, because they want to rein in the shogunate side, which uses the power of Amrita and yokai, the Shinsengumi, who side with the shogunate, also become targets of the purge. In the Okita Sōji fight, Takechiyo enters the arena already wrapped in "Shadow Clone." According to the player, this lets them dodge the enemy's first attack while securing time to unleash a charged attack.

The next opponent is Tokugawa Yoshinobu, historically the last shogun. Yoshinobu, a member of Kunimatsu's faction, also appears to be abusing the power of Amrita. Regarding Takechiyo, who has met many heroes and received the protection of their spirit fragments, the player says it's nice and easy to understand that you can gauge his strength by the number of protections. In the Yoshinobu fight, the player uses the "Impurity-Transfer Katashiro." By applying a large number of debuffs to themselves beforehand and transferring them to the enemy, the fight ended with "just a light stroke."

Having traveled through past and future and met many heroes, Takechiyo heads into the final battle. The final boss is Hiruko, whom he twice failed to finish off. Declaring, "Whether we laugh or cry, this is the last one," the player defeats Hiruko. For the final boss fight, there is no explanation of tactics like there is for the other boss fights.

The ending and staff roll play while the player watches in silence. Takechiyo saves Japan while still naked, becomes shogun, and the story ends.

After finishing the game, the player says that there were many touches drawn from history and folklore, and that they were personally very satisfied with the relationships and dialogue between characters, which made them chuckle.

On combat, they reflect that every boss was "squishy" this time, and the fights ended up being shorter than they had expected. That said, they found the balancing of buffs and debuffs and the fine-tuning of how to drain a boss's Ki to be interesting, and rated the game as very enjoyable as "a puzzle with action elements" as well. The player cites the very process of tweaking, boss by boss, the setup used throughout nearly the entire game—"stack status ailments, slow the enemy down, stop it with Shadow Stitch, hit it from behind"—as the fun of the game. Finally, they wrap up the video by recommending the game as a Sengoku action RPG whose combat is also approachable.