Hey man thanks for your post. Really appreciate!
Not sure what you mean by guardian spirit? The blue summons? Or those Yokai circles I'm supposed to fill? Sorry man it's a lot to take in. Makes me feel so dumb.
So when you started, you get to pick between a wolf, a shark, and I forget the other one, maybe a peacock? They're called Guardian Spirits, and when you press Triangle+Circle, it wll put you into "living weapon" mode where you won't lose any health and deal increased elemental type damage. If you press Triangle+Circle again, it will do a special attack using whatever spirit you have equipped that does a lot of Ki damage to demons. In addition, they provide stat and passive bonuses etc. I recommend the shark for beginner players always because it shows enemy locations on the mini-map while it's on your character, so you will have a lot fewer issues with ambushes. You will get a ton of these spirits over time, and at a certain point you can equip 2 of them. Might be able to from the start now, I'm not sure. Anyways, you get meter to unleash the spirits as you fight and kill stuff and collect amrita, so feel free to use them liberally when needed, or you can save them for bigger demons that are blocking your progress or even bosses. The passives are always active unless you die and the guardian spirit is stuck at your bloodstain guarding your souls. That's why sometimes it's worth more to use the infinite use item to call them back instead of guarding a small amount of souls when you are repeatedly dying at the same spot. There are a LOT of mechanics at play in Nioh 2, don't feel bad about being overwhelmed at first. If you didn't play the first one, there are even more things to learn as a new player. But once it clicks, it's one of the best combat systems in any game in the last decade, IMO.
And yeah I've replayed the first level 2 times now. Getting "better" or rather more accustomed to it all.
Yea, I bashed my head against that horse for like 2 hours until I beat him when I first started, but the game even encourages you to sneak by him when you first get to him, so don't sweat the small stuff. The game is fairly huge and going back into a stage is literally just a button click, so just tackle it later if you can't do it now.
Damn. That's a lot of hours. I haven't even try to incorporate throwing stuff. Although I really like making headshots with the bow.
Hatchets as a weapon type are mostly focused as mid range ranged weapons, despite you being able to also hack and slash with them. Everybody has a few weapon types that they gravitate towards, so just find what you like and go with it. The genius of Nioh is that you gain weapon xp just by using that particular weapon, so it's always easy to pick up a new one and play around at any point in the game. My favorites after a few hundred hours were actually the hatchets and splitstaff, but I also dabbled in Spear and Dual Swords from time to time. Nioh 2 has amazing flexibility with how you play the game.
Ranged weapons (guns, cannons, bows, etc) are a different category, which are able to be aimed and consume ammo. They can definitely deal some damage and are great for sneak attacks/openers, but I mostly use them for pulling single enemies to avoid getting grouped up on.