My impression is that compared to real life all of the KSP parachutes are much too good. Take the Soyuz...
Look at the size of the chute compared to the tiny capsule. And it still does a rocket engine powered soft landing in the end. Landing on Earth is kind of a hassle too.
That being said, KSP is kind of a cartoonish representation of spaceflight. If you want a challenge, perhaps what might work is adding parachute drag to the realism sliders, like how you can adjust docking tolarance or could adjust how much heating would destroy parts in KSP1 .