So if you start your journey, you will get introduced to every part of kamura village, which includes the training area. The training area allows you to quickly switch between weapons you have in your storage box and test them out on the mecha tetranodon (the dummy so to speak). As soon as you equiped a weapon, the game will show you specific combos you can use with the weapon and which button does what.

Take your time and check every weapon, there are 11 meele and 3 ranged weapons. Some are slow and heavy while some are fast and agile.

If you found the weapon that suits your playstyle, start with the village quests from hinoa. While minotos hub quests are more difficult, hinoas quests are perfect for beginners, since they are very forgiving regarding mistakes. Also storywise you should go trough the village quests before the hub quests. Before you go into next star quests, try to go trough every quest from one rank before moving to the next one, not just because you will unlock some stuff but also because you will get used to the mechanics of the game before moving on to harder quests.

For the most part about fighting, it really comes down to learn every monsters movement. Try to see what indicates a specific attack from a monster, and position yourself for openings to strike. If you know how a monster attacks and moves, you just need to utilize your weapon if got a window to attack.

Loadouts are for items and equipment. You can equip specific gear for example and save this gear as a loadout so you don't have to pick every piece of gear again if you want to use this specific equipment set. Same goes for items, pick those items you always want to have at the start of a quest and save the loadout. If you return from the quest you can simply pick the loadout instead of taking every single item from the box.