I tried playing this game quite a ways back and I found the combat system complicated as well. I mean I was winning, but it never seemed like I was really in control of anything and it seemed pretty random at times.
I read up on the system quite a bit, but even then it didn't seem to help that much.
The weird thing for me was that there were stats I had no idea what they did and they just levelled up. Like someone had the stat "love" and I never could figure out for the life of me what that had to do with anything, especially in combat.