Uncharted and Last of Us are first party Sony games. If they were to say that a game can still be enjoyable without cutting edge graphics no one would want to buy the latest PlayStation iteration.
In regards to SSX, after the success of the Tony Hawk Pro Skater remake, I am surprised that EA did not counter with a remake of SSX Tricky. I love how accessible the SSX controls are while still offering plenty of depth for people who want to optimize their runs. It is too bad that EA Sports seems to be focused on simulationist sports games (and live services).
I thought that the uproar about horse armor was that it was the first pay-to-win DLC. The armor was not just cosmetic but actually provided a stat boost to your horse. The accusation was that the developers had made it too easy for enemies to kill your horse and decided to patch the game to fix it but made players pay for the patch.
Note with Stardew Valley: it is not unplayable without a controller, but if you have clumsy sausage fingers like me, the poor touch controls really took me out of the game.
The rice growing is not Harvest Moon-style “plant your crops, water them every day, and harvest after five days”. You need to monitor the water level of your field, the water temperature (and air temperature), crop spacing (it is not grid based), the nutrient ratios, the field aeration, etc. Your first couple of years are going to be a rough until you level up and unlock actual numbers for these instead of having to guestimate.
I tried it for the first time a few months ago. It was bad. The in-game tutorial does not cover half of it and the game play that I could figure out was super shallow. I could probably look up third party getting started guides, but I did not think it was worth the bother.
It is nice of them to add something new, but I am a bit disappointed by the NSO emulated game library. There are still many big name first party titles missing and I would not mind paying a bit more for a much more robust library.