I'd say HK is a mix of Metroidvania and Souls-like. Except for the 3D, all the main elements are there: the player being a character specially selected to a certain obscure task, the hard bosses, losing and recovering souls mechanic, cryptic apocalyptic lore, a main hub early on and then a few NPCs spread on the map etc.

I've only played Demon's Souls, Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2. From those, Demon's Souls was a great mix of excellent gameplay and a subtle but very good story with two brilliant possible endings.

Dark Souls had a larger world and expanded the gameplay of Demon's in some ways, not all of them great, but it was overall good, gameplay-wise. The story however, I thought was terrible. Both endings were garbage and a complete let down after such a long game.

Dark Souls 2 took some elements from Demon's and gameplay-wise it was "alright" though I'd say the formula was getting really stale. The Valley of Defilement was pretty much copied from Demon's to Dark Souls 1 and then again in DS II? Come on now. The worst part however was the story. It took elements from Demon's but it didn't have nearly the same impact as that one. It felt repetitive, lazy and the endings were, again, shit.

I came off so disappointed after finishing Dark Souls 2 that I didn't even try the DLC parts even though I got the "complete" edition. I don't even know if I should try the other From Soft games when I get a PS4 since their recent way of making stories has been so subpar for me.

All that being said, I'm really intrigued by Nioh. I really like Feudal Japan as a setting so might give that game a shot at some point.

Hollow Knight is in this category? I actually played that one. Beat it, too! If I knew it was a "Soulslike" I probably would have skipped it. I have a phobia about super hard games these days.

Hollow Knight is a 10/10 for me.

You are scared of hard games, but love HK? That makes no sense, HK was pretty darn difficult until I started looking shit up online. The mantis bosses kicked my ass plenty of times.

1. Demon's Souls and Bloodborne

That's all.

HK is much much harder than any soulslike I've played (haven't played Sekiro and from what I gather that's not veeery soulslike either). The early Souls games (DeS, DS1+2) need hardly any "skill", just a bit of patience and a healthy dose of fear of the unknown.

When I bought it, I just heard it was a good metroidvania type game. Hadn't heard about the difficulty. There were some tough battles but it never stopped being fun.

When I heard about Dark Souls, all I ever saw was "You Died", "You Died", "You Died". It made me not even want to give it a try. I didn't need that kind of frustration in my life! Then Bloodborne and the other games had that same reputation. I avoided them all.

There was a time when no game intimidated me but now I just want to enjoy myself.

1.Demons souls,
2. sekiro,
3.bloodborne

I also thought HK much harder than the Souls games until the second time I've played it. Then it just clicked somehow in my brain. In a way, it's very much like Sekiro in that it requires quick reflexes and a low vulnerability to "panicking", although later Souls games have been increasingly punitive of panicking as they got faster.

Bloodborne
Dark Souls 3
Sekiro
Dark Souls
Nioh
Code Vein
Dark Souls 2

I only really class games that heavily use the DS template as souls like tbh.