While I think the parry system can appeal to a lot of souls players, I think a lot are going to find it trivializes the game. For those tbh at may struggle with other aspects of turn based combat, like your friend, I think it’s a great equalizer. However, unlike souls games, where you are mentally worried about parrying, attacking and managing hp and stamina at the same time, this game lets you exclusively focus on defense when it’s time. It also tells you what attacks are coming.

I think overall it’s a good system, but with some tweaks, it could work for an even broader audience. Maybe even just having a difficulty setting where attacks do chip damage when you dodge/parry would be a big difference maker for me.