If you needed any other incentive to run PS4, holding the L1 button allows rush to sprint in the overworld (!). Should bring any% runs down below 5 hours.

Also requesting NG+ category - I'm thinking that growth items have the potential to reduce the grind to almost watchable/entertaining levels (especially double ragna-rocks, double especially if they fixed some of the bugs associated with it, which they seem to have done in other parts of the game).

Also hi, I'm Cynas. I'm in love with this game - and I'm finally going to dedicate some time to learning this run (and potentially new routing - NG+ growth items might let you abuse cachexia instead of blackout, which is probably slower, but less RNG).