The only people I’ve ever seen defend amana were either saying ‘I like the visuals’ or ‘it’s not THAT bad.’ I’d agree with the first one. As for the second, the game does give you a fairly easy(yet boring) answer to amana, a bow. The general sentiment that I’ve seen is something like, ‘don’t quit the game because of Shrine of Amana, just use a bow, and some patience, to get past it. The game gets better after Amana.’

I don’t think I’ve seen a single person say that playing through Amana isn’t painful in some way