You're not wrong imo, honestly I struggled with CS1 & 2 at times & felt much the same. It's something that does happen throughout the series to a degree, but for some reason it (at least to me) feels more of an issue in those 2 games. Maybe it's due to the school setting & the party being mostly kids whereas there's a few more adults around in the other games, I don't know.

But yeah, I suspect you will probably find CS2 to be not that much different. I did feel 3 was a fairly big improvement personally. The MC being a little older & wiser, plus the core group being smaller & consequently having a bit more development helped. So even if you find 2 to be a bit of a struggle, it's worth it for the 3rd (and hopefully 4th) CS game.