Yeah, I could definitely see it being that way when you're just thrown into it for a <5 minute session. Check out the demo on PSN, it's got some decent pre-fight tutorial things that focus on teaching one or two aspects over multiple fights, then throws you into a boss battle where you have to use 'em all. I thought it was going to be a ridiculous mess too from the footage I'd seen, but I ended up really liking it after it explained itself well.

(I'd advise you pick Onion Knight or Cloud to begin with in the demo, their air attacks have less of a learning curve than the others.)