I struggled with Symphonia because I came to it after Vesperia and Xillia, which both take the formula and improve upon it drastically.

Symphonia was great for it's time... but it has aged very poorly in my opinion. Some of the silly tropes in there weren't really tropes when Symphonia was released, as this was one of the games that originally wrote the formula that became somewhat tiring over the following decade.

It does get better in all areas the deeper you get into it. But... don't be ashamed to look at a guide when you get to the puzzle dungeons. Again, lengthy block pushing puzzles may have been all the rage back in the day, but I think humankind as a species has evolved beyond that in 2014!