Like I said, Ne Londo has the first blacksmith you can get to, so going there isn't bad, and that's before the ghosts. Yeah, you're going to need to back out once you get to the ghosts. If you try to force your way through that then yeah, it'll be bad, but that one is really obvious you shouldn't be doing it.

I talked about the Catacombs a lot, in how it failed. I think you ignored it. It's supposed to be approachable for new players, but it failed, mostly in the escape. The necromancers are solvable with a divine weapon. They can't revive skeletons killed by them. You're supposed to back out of it at the very start, but return once you get a divine weapon. Again, it failed at what it was supposed to do, but the goal was for struggling players to go there are get the Rite of Kindling. That's why Pinwheel is such a joke. He's supposed to be fought early.

I haven't played it, but I've watched it. I think Demon's Souls actually probably does a better job. It's very similar, but less ambitious without a connected world. Obviously Elden Ring also does it better, but it makes it somewhat boring too. It's almost trivial.