In adventure games, inventory items were made to be combined, and that was always easier done with mouse-based inventory management. Since this is a console experience, Tell Tale has managed the best that it could; one button opens up the inventory menu, then you highlight the item to be used. This goes into a sub-menu that allows it to be combined with another object in your inventory or in the active game. It sounds clunky, but there’s no real way around it. PC-style inventory management simply doesn’t work smoothly on a console environment, though Tell Tale has done its best to try to make it streamlined and accessible.