It feels super clunky, I can't even make it past the first horde of goblins, because I get destroyed. I tried mashing attack and spamming spell until Im out of mana. I can't get in melee at all without getting killed constantly. I'm using the quick start party.

Take the coach to Castle Ironfist (may be you have to wait a few days).
There your party can learn the bow skill and buy bows. It is much easier to deal with the goblins from afar.
M&M games are notorious for their hordes of enemies. It is crucial to figure out how to handle them.
Switch to turn mode in battle, this gives you better hitting chances.
Also, you will probably often have to retreat and heal.

"I tried mashing buttons and didn't win the game" yeah I dunno what could be wrong there fam

The beginning of MM6 is quite hard. Dungeons like the Abandoned Temple can be very difficult at the point where you are supposed to face them, forcing you to fight hordes of enemies with those pesky "poison" and "disease" status.

First of all, as Mondkalb suggested, get bows for everyone. In this game the bow doesn't seem to be an optional weapon, but an essential equipment, at least at the start.

In melee your health will drop very fast and the starting spells available are not such great, not are the SP of the spellcasters particulary high. The bow is the best option.

I recommend to change to turn-based mode (pressing Enter) for most of the battles. When you get surrounded, deactivate it and move back to keep the distance.

When your health goes low you should retreat to heal in fountains (there is one for HP in New Sorphigal) or by resting (consumes food if you camp outside). Any status ailment would need to be healed at the temple, at least until you can fix them through your own spells or items.

Use turn based mode

Yep, this right here. It took me a while to figure out the first time I ever played it, and I was wondering why the enemies were getting to attack multiple times in the time it took my guys to hit once.

I feel differently about the bows. They help but Magic is more useful except for those who have sufficient points in accuracy.
Starting Party. Have good endurance levels. If you have a non-magic player, good accuracy.

Don't bother with Magic Arrow or Flame Arrow. They are worthless.
Go to the Guilds (after paying the entrance fee) and get 1) Static Charge; Cold Beam; and/or Deadly Swarm. If you have a Cleric-- Harm.

I use the two horse shoes in New Sop. Stable to increase Air Magic to level two. It makes static more powerful and keeps wizard eye operational longer.

When you see red dots in Wizard Eye, then move toward them until they move toward you--- then stop. Turn Base. Let the front line of enemies approach. Take them out, if you need more blue goo or cure wounds, then go to the Fountains or Temple.

Magic (other than MA and FA) rarely misses but arrows often do.
Don't let an enemy surround you at any time--- run.
But the fountain with might points help if you they get close.

PS
Sparks is great till you get to Dragons and Titans. But you need a couple levels before it drains the Blue Goo too quickly.
I get a kick out of turning players "up" and hitting sparks when bats are around. Takes them out in bunches.

Try to split up the monster groups.
If a goblin spots your party do not approach him, else his friends behind him might see your party too and attack, rather try to lure him away so you don't have to fight more than 1-2 monsters at the same time.

Take on only a few enemies at a time.

You run faster than they can follow, and their AI pathing is rudimentary. So, you just need to move in close enough to get the attention of a few, and back/run away to get them to break off from the rest of their group and follow you.

This process will become very natural/fluid as you get into the habit of playing this game.

There's also a healing well in the center of town. One of the two fountains north of town replenishes your mana.

Hit and run! Don't stand and fight! Make good use of your bow. Goblins are mostly melee so it's not so difficult. Shoot across from a distance or across a river, when they approach, run quickly to the town to the spring, fight near the spring the restores hitpoint or mana and use turn-based mode when fight in the town to avoid killing civilians. And you can also go to a 2nd floor of any 2-storeyed build if you really feel to hard, there you will face one enemy a time due to the narrow entry. Anyways, hit and run is the best strategy, it takes time but works fine. When you have enough money, get everyone a bow and the bow ability. This is the most economic at the beginning.

'A' is attack, as you know, and 'S' is spell; what you may not know is that 'B' is skip turn, i.e. this person doesn't want to do anything right now, move on to the next person. Useful, especially in turn-based mode, when approaching goblins are outside melee range, so the archer can shoot, paladin and cleric (before they get bows) can only wait, and sorcerer might as well wait too, preserving his blue goo for when really needed.

Have you read the "first quest walk-through" at the end of the manual? If not, don't; if you have, ignore most of it. The game starts us off at 9 am on a Monday. I spend the first morning-into-afternoon going round the houses, afternoon-into-evening rescuing the lost child (the lowest level quest in the game), the night in the inn, and the next morning hunting goblins off into the distance, in the opposite direction to the goblinwatch fort. Then when I do go towards the fort, the second afternoon, I am conveniently placed to pop into the gym (training center) just before it closes, to train up two levels in one go.

Horseshoes - something we know, which neither the manual nor talkative NPCs explain - do not bring luck; rather, each time one of our characters eats one - how is that supposed to work?! - the character gains 2 skill points.

Train up two levels in one go, get 10 skill points (each character), allocate 9 into bringing one skill to level 4, pay a teacher to be made an expert. Train two more levels, 10 more points, become an expert in a second skill, have 2 points left over. Train for one level, 2+5 = 7 skill points, add 2 from a horseshoe, low-and-behold can get third expertise (I'll have moved on from New Sorpigal by then; the accessible experience there is enough for four levels of training, not five).

Guild membership costs are non-negotiable, so are teachers' charges for expert skill. Merchant skill helps with everything else, including starting a new skill at level 1 by buying it from a guild, so buy merchant skill first, from the "night" guild.

Do not expect to do everything in an area first time there. At New Sorpigal, the quick-start party, training up as they go, can do everything they can reach without getting their feet wet, including two dungeons, but not everything on the outlying islands.

As the narrator says in the introduction, "choose wisely". Early on, the game is about learning the gameplay, learning about the game-world (keep talking to everybody you can, whether in houses or peasants in the streets, and see if they have different things to say on different days), and about choosing what to spend money and skill-points on first. Don't splash out too much on armor skills, by the way, but get your protection from helmets, gloves and boots, cloaks even, which need no skill.

Enter town, join magic guilds. Your money is gone, go to the well next to tavern, click it, read the letter in your inventory, talk to the guy in the tavern about the letter, take the coach to the next town, run up the hill to castle, don't talk to the kid inside, give letter to the man inside the castle, hit caps lock key and slowly make your way down the hill without agroing the monsters, join the guild, get the bow skill, buy bows, get horseshoes, (you now have 4 horseshoes, 2 from ironside and 2 from new sorpail) and take the coach back to town, train everybody, use the strength well, make sure run mode is off and slowly approach the goblins.

Side note, if you use real time fighting and the run key is on, your characters will mostly miss their targets.

Some money from the guy in the starting town, and more from the man inside the castle - makes the trick with the well somewhat silly. Useful if returning from the dead, though.

Try looking at the manual that came with the game. Helpful.