Here's a very in-depth video on the dark souls trilogy made by a reviewer that is bad at games and loves the series. And his follow-up on the 3 post dark souls games.

Now that I have read everyone's responses I have a few things to add that others haven't mentioned yet:

I actually very rarely roll in this game, it's reserved for certain quick manuvering which is not always required, because most of the time I am actually positioning myself to be in the "blind spot" of the enemy.

Parrying and backstabbing is really important. Granted I have skipped parrying and mostly backstab when needed, but if I was patient enough I could easily just one shot many enemies and parry bosses.

The community is actually not very toxic, although it may have that reputation, honestly there are people like that in every popular fandom 😔 griefers, g*mers... but people who cherish this game for it's anti-fascist sentiments get it. They're cool people.

The plot of the first game is very vauge and not really explained that much. To me this makes it much more endearing. There is a lot which is implied but not outright said, perhaps leaving it to interpretation. What one might consider the "good" path is a trick, supported by liars (in my view) There are characters who turn out to be shitty. And there are characters who feel like they care about your well being.

Everything in this game that is a boon to you feels precious. There is something about the spirit of resilience in here, and the shared resilience of those who take the journey with you.

Above all: Don't give up, Skeleton!

everytime i tune into a stream where someone is playing one of these games they are just rolling around on the ground like wtf are you doing just play sanic the gofer or whatever if you want to roll into a ball and move around on the floor

This would describe expedition 33: Claire obscura pretty well.

Souls-like just means m "rhythm games with swords and magic instead of dancing and neon shapes"

Souls-like is defined by the need to decide between attacking, blocking, dodging or parrying. With the additional factor of attacks having a fixed commitment to the attack animation that leaves you vulnerable and likely to get hit if you press it at the wrong time.

It's mostly just 2D fighting game combat translated into 3D with a lock on targeting system.

"souls like" is when your character is doing a slow "return to idle" animation so you press a button to stop that and do the next thing, but they have no visible reaction, then the situation changes so you press a different button, then five years later they finish their animation and act like you pressed the first button

According to the Skyrim modding community, Souls-like combat means:

-You have a camera lock on function

-You have a dodge or roll button

-You have 'attack commitments' that hold the player and enemies in place during attacks to make the attacks feel more weighty

You have slightly more optional aspects like having weapons with somewhat varied movesets or the punishing difficulty but as far as changing Skyrim's combat into a Souls-like, those seem to be the defining traits

soulslike is when animation priority and when you have a whole lot of animation priority, you get QTE

to me there is nothing quite like dark souls 1. even later iterations are "souls like" (while still being their own thing)

to me its a game where the stakes are relatively low; you can die a lot and it doesn't really matter. You just have to learn the movesets of the bosses / enemies, and however long it takes you to execute damage within the windows given. It requires a lot of patience, memorization, and some motor skill effort depending on what you're trying to do. It's difficulty means that any hardship you overcome feels well deserved and rewarding. You can grind and get levels / gear that helps, or go bare bones. While the game is punishing, and does have some "gotcha!" moments (such as saying "no" to a cat) you can always work to overcome it. I don't think the developers intended to be cruel or to punish one too much.

And then there is ds1 pvp which I hear is like starting all over again and overcoming a wall, but is unique in it's delivery.

really, when other games say "soulslike" I think they just mean their game is difficult and requires memorizing the movesets of bosses. Hades 1-2 has some aspects of this but it's not exactly the same. But dying has different consequences, starting over from the very beginning.

Combat is mostly rolling.

These days souls like combat means basically anything. Action RPG? Souls like. Dodging and parrying mechanics? Soulslike. Drop your items on death? Soulslike. I recall a review of Expedition 33 that called the combat soulslike which is absolutely ridiculous.

The word has become like the word rogue like in that it is so overloaded it's essentially meaningless

Having a high damage to health ratio is common but not remotely essential, while people would consider having stamina much more important for the character of the genre because it introduces resource management. Another common example of resource management is having a heal with a limited number of uses that is restored at checkpoints. There's also usually a mechanic where when certain conditions are met, you can go to the enemy and do a much stronger attack with a canned joint animation between attacker and recipient (backstabbing and whatever the other one is called in DS are like this).

There are also other structural aspects of the game outside of the immediate combat, like the existence of those checkpoints that restore health and certain resources, certain elements of the world design (centered on shortcuts and unlocking doors, usually), the bloodstained mechanic, the soapstone mechanics for letting players leave each other messages, and a few other things.