Hot take: their older games are better and the newer ones get progressively worse. Demon’s Souls was a solid RPG with rough edges and an interesting, detailed world. Dark Souls improved on the world and exploration, but they also specifically started to cater to all the fans that loved how “difficult” Demon’s Souls was. Ironically, they were praised for making a game to their own vision without compromising just for the sake of popularity. But difficulty alone was never the main draw of Demon’s Souls or the strength of From Software as a developer. They always specialized in immersive, detailed worlds. But ever since Demon’s Souls, they’ve catered increasingly and exclusively to the get gud crowd because it’s obviously successful (and you can hardly blame them tbh). They’re succeeding off the reputation for not doing the thing that they’re doing.

All that said, Demon’s Souls and DS1 & 3 can be enjoyed by most players if you’re willing to play slowly, level build, and use cheese strategies. I can’t speak to 2, I kinda bounced off it (I’m sorry, Zin). The rest are much harder to enjoy solo without literally just getting good at the game, as per the memes. Co-op may be a different story, obviously. If you can get into the really old stuff, King’s Field (series), Eternal Ring, and Shadow Tower Abyss are actually really fun once you get accustomed to the jank. They have a lot of the charm of the souls games without all the annoying git gud crap. RIP, they shall be missed.