My first time trying one of their games, Dark Souls 2 was as a mage, as you suggested. It gave me a really bad experience because it worked against teaching me the necessary core mechanics for brutal fights. The main difficulty wasn’t even just enemies being too hard, it was lack of signposting that resulted in me accidentally going to a midgame area without intending to; and thinking I was locked in that area because of a complex door.

All the other advice is nice, but I’d prefer to enjoy games without relying on conflicting third party tips. I’ve looked up advice for games like Tunic, but it was usually more for very specific things rather than a broad “Game is too hard, what out of 17 things am I doing wrong”.

Even on that end, actions like invasions or even juste eking up aren’t necessarily easy to figure out due to cryptic item descriptions and hidden NPC placements.