A raspberry Pi is a very good emulation device using the RetroPie image. A Pi 4b can go up to PSX/N64 fairly easily.
On the handheld side of things, most of them that “come with” ROM sets will have them loaded on an SD card. These manufacturers often skimp on the cards though, so expect it to die quickly. You can usually just clone the whole SD to a new one and it’s fine.
Most of these devices use RetroArch and software emulation. However, there is another option. The Mister project and devices sold by Analogue use field programmable gate arrays - chips that can change their structure according to software. This means running an NES game on one of these devices is more literally like running it on original hardware. For accurate emulation, this is the best option by far. However, it comes with a significantly higher price tag.
In general the easiest and least expensive startup for emulation is on the PC. With fairly modest hardware, emulation of everything up to PS2 is possible with some newer platforms also being very emulatable (notably everything Nintendo puts out is easy to run because their architecture is largely straightforward, their systems are lower power, and there is significantly more demand for their games)
If you specifically want something hooked up to your TV, a first generation (launch window, before they increased the battery life) Switch can happily run a fair amount of stuff, including everything up to N64/PS1. The (new)3DS/2DS is also a great emulation device and can run basically everything up to SNES/Genesis handheld.
Oh and one more option. If you have Android, you can easily install a variety of emulators and use a Bluetooth or wired controller with them utilizing a controller phone mount.
You still need to scan individual plants resources or animals to get the Surveying perk upgrades, which gives you better zoom on the scanner, which can be useful sometimes.
file or disk encryption is only for protecting against attackers with physical access to the machine your VM is running on. Getting files from your server to local storage you should still use a secure connection and encrypted traffic to prevent ISP snooping, but going extreme on file encryption isn’t necessary unless you’re downloading actual heinous shit (CSAM) in which case you should go to jail.
Morally? That depends on the person. I think asking a piracy focused community means you’re going to get a heavily skewed set of answers that all veer towards various forms of “Not wrong” or “It’s good actually. Don’t even support the platforms that make the content legally available because DRM sucks” etc.
Generally speaking though, most older visual media releases no longer make money for anyone who worked on them directly. Use that information however you see fit. I know it changes how I think about piracy in general.
Any games you already own on Steam or Epic will still need to launch those clients in order to run with GameHub. If you run Linux, then a lot of the work Steam does in the background with Proton to make things run will no longer be automatic.