What I meant by this statement:

"although I've been having similar problems with parts of the first mission and I can almost clear the entire first mission with my eyes closed."

Is that Gaiares isn't actually hard. Okay, who the hell am I kidding, but at first I found the first mission really hard, but after about a dozen tries it really eases up. Whenever getting to a new part of the game, it's usually really hard, but after you clear that part and you know how it's done, it doesn't seem so bad. Lotta games are like this, Gaiares especially.
<a href= "http://www.angelfire.com/pq2/yoichi">Yoichi's Temple of Fiends Revisited</a>