Hollow Knight is arguably better than any of the games mentioned in this entire thread.

Nine Sols is the only one on this list I would say reaches FromSoft levels. Hollow knights touch damage is nonsense and Salt and Santury is way too stiff. Nine Sols though is brilliant. 

Nonsense touch damage from enemies, the game is good but this is lazy AF, if they enemies had attacks to read and maneuver maybe it has a chance at FromSoft level. Nine Sols done exactly that. 

Did you even play the game? 😂

People can take this comment as they like but for a lot of people it's not about the game, it's about the name of the game.

"Why they don't come close" because a lot of people don't give the games an actual chance, everything is about finding what's wrong with the game even when things aren't wrong they are just different but if it's a FS suddenly nothing is wrong lol. I'm not going to say that there aren't games that are just the minimum effort but there are great games that don't have the attention they deserve just because they don't have the logo in the box.

When Nioh released it had way better gameplay than the DS franchise, where is the appreciation to the Nioh franchise? When Elden Ring came out a lot of people who never played other things than Fortnite and the Sims played the game, that's cool ER is a great game so ... why not playing similar games that are also good and share similarities? Because you can't brag you "know about videogames" if you play a game people don't give a damn about lol. So no, it's not about the games it's about knowing that it's a FS game.

For me Nioh 2 already beats Fs games. Team Ninja and Fs alike haven't been able to top it since.

I got to the mantis Lords and dropped, idk how far that was in but I killed a few bosses. The map became such a mess to navigate. 

Nope. Taking the games and analysing them on their own regardless of FS games and they all fail on their own merit regardless of FS. Reviews back me up on this. Nioh is flawed, their is no doubting that, I put 170 hour in the game for two fresh runs and I love it, another 120 hours in Nioh 2 for a full fresh run and a half run through. Those games are fantastic but they are frayed at the edges in many littles ways like too much nonsense loot and what not, Nioh 2 is too focused on builds and strays from masterpiece level because of it, it also blurs the line between fun and challenge way to much, that level with the paintings boss rush is a clear example of Nioh 2 being too punishing and unfun, solo. They balance for co-op play and that's unfair to us solo players, it was so brutal to get through solo and don't say you can build through it cause you can't until you start building in NG+ or Twilight, whatever it's called and you statt putting those green sets together. The game is designed to be legit unfair to solo players on the first run and not one mistake is allowed, if you slip up even slightly you're dead with no room for slight error cause everything is tuned gor vo-op in mind. Some bosses needing agro of a summon or another players like that boss that has tentacles and shoots you from behind on top of the roof is awful stuff. I could never give a game tuned like that a 10 no matter how good it is and they are great games. 

I've only played Khazan demo - satisfying combat, but I found level design to be mediocre at best. I didn't like Sekiro, grappling hook for me breaks level design, and I really don't consider it Soulslike given how different it is in most aspects. BB has setting that I don't care much about, and it's purely offensive oriented with no shields as an option, which I like in older Souls.

So...I guess everyone has different things that looks for in Souls.

Oh, Khazans level design doesn't get any better, it gets worse in some levels. I wouldn't recommend it unless you love the combat and even then I'd advise caution cause of the stanima system.