Both at work and among friends, I'm known as a Soulslike hater, but my actual relationship with games like Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring is a lot more complicated. I have treasured memories playing parts of Bloodborne's campaign and dueling in Dark Souls 2 with my college roommates, and I tried like hell to get through Elden Ring because I'm hopelessly transfixed by its world and story, but ultimately, I always end up falling off these types of games simply because I am not very good at them. I'm an anxious, fidgety, deeply impatient person, and I've found those attributes clash with the high-risk, deliberate, time-intensive battles that define the Soulslike genre.
In other words, Soulslikes are just too damn hard for my tastes, which sucks because I admire everything else about them. The best Soulslikes offer unparalleled worldbuilding and enchantingly nuanced storytelling; it's just that, for my money, all of that stuff is locked behind unnecessarily punishing battles with grunts, mini bosses, and big bosses alike. Every single combat encounter is a test of patience that I more often than not fail, even if I respect the philosophy that overcoming adversity makes story beats and world discoveries more rewarding.
