There's some truth to this, but if you play sensibly (get your pieces to squares where they can influence the game, get your fair share of the center of the board, get your king to safety) you really just need to look for fairly direct tactics (mainly whether your opponent can do something immediately to win material)

You don't need to memorize all sorts of openings and theory unless you're trying to get as good as possible (and even so it's one of the later things you should worry about)