I found it kinda strange just how hyped up the difficulty of this section supposedly was. It seemed like every reviewer and their mother made at least some mention to it.

I just earned the platinum trophy and I have to say I didn't find this all that challenging. I also did not experience any cheap deaths that were supposedly unavoidable in this section (seriously, where were these?). I did my first playthrough on hard and by the time I reached this spot it was just another combat section. The early parts of the game, that shit was tougher. It felt like you were severely underpowered and always outnumbered.

Was the issue that people who were playing on normal were simply button mashing and then they reached this spot where it was no longer viable and had no idea how to approach the situation? Am I just used to God of War seeing as how I have platinumed every game in the series? I found the Trial of Archimedes was no harder then the challenge rooms in previous God of War games.

Did you find this section especially challenging? If so what made it challenging to you? What difficulty did you play it on? Are you glad they are going to patch it?

I'm pretty sure SSM already tweaked the difficulty for that area, so that is probably why you didn't have any problems.

@meltac: Hasn't been patched yet -- and it's only going to be patched on Normal. They're leaving Hard alone.

@darthorange: Difficult-ish. Took me a bunch of tries (on Normal). I think the issue is, in part, the rest of the game doesn't require you to use all your abilities and skills in the same way. You should, but you don't have to -- you can bungle through. Archimedes doesn't let you. It asks you to be good at the combat, not just competent.

But I think the difficulty has been a bit overstated, and people are just using the same failed tactics over and over again expecting different results.

Since you can't switch difficulty mid-game (and the game doesn't adapt or offer to switch you down), I think it's okay for them to patch it on Normal. It's so close to the end, it'd be a shame if people are too discouraged to persevere and too frustrated to bother starting the whole campaign over on Easy.

Going by what Dan Rykart said, if you are a series veteran (which you clearly are) and generally highly skilled, it shouldn't cause too many problems, but the average player will find it difficult and take a several attempts

What makes it so difficult?

I haven't reached that part yet. I won't be patching the game because I'm playing on normal and I want to see what all the fuss is about. So I'll have to get back to you when I do play it.

It was pretty tough, but I got through it (I played it on hard). Took me a few tries - mainly that first section. I thought that was the worst of the waves. The next two aren't so bad.

Anyway, I didn't really bother with the items much until that fight. Using them really turned the tide for me. I like "character action" games but I'm not the best at them, so it felt great once I finished it. Then I realized I missed an artifact directly after the trials and I had to go back and do it again!

I think there are many complaints because it's the kind of fight you can't completely just stumble through. People who are veterans of the series probably won't think much of it, but most other players may find the lack of checkpoints and health and the required precision to be too much, especially if they went through the previous sections of the game without much use of their items and magic.

Like others have said it's the first real combat that requires you to be actually any good at it. The rest of the game on normal is much easier relatively speaking. But it's not overly difficult either, I just needed to be a bit more careful and dodge a bit more and be less sloppy in general. Took me 3 or 4 tries on normal and I am not very good at these types of games.

@bocam: Lots of enemies get thrown at you in a confined space (and at one point a very very confined space). The battles themselves are not too difficult, but you are required to beat all of them in a row, without checkpoints or health/mana refills.

Played it on Easy before the patch. Unsurprisingly, didn't have an issue. Beat it first try.

If you've Platinum'd every GoW game then you're most likely far better than every reviewer who has probably played the earlier games once on Normal or Easy.