My first time playing Bloodborne I completely missed the weapons on the ground and kept trying the werewolf fight until I beat that thing to death with my bare hands.

That is certainly the “Souls-like” experience. Bloodborne is actually one of the best entries to cut your teeth on, its like Dark Souls Lite, with a whole lot less to worry about build wise and just being overall an easier, more straight forward game. It’s still tough as nails at some points, but nowhere near as hard as DS1-3. Elden Ring might be slightly easier due to the proliferate summoning options, but the open world will fuck you up a little more to navigate.

I think that’s everyone’s experience with souls games until you “git gud”.