It's very much of its time, and I definitely had issues with its finickyness, but you can see why this grew into a popular series - even if the current Sony management couldn't care less about it.

Bounced off it almost immediately.

I was prepared to be charitable - first game, they haven't found their footing, etc, but everything tied to the combat needed another iteration or two, which stopped the bosses being cool and sapped the enjoyability of later encounters. A frustrating experience that shouldn't have been.