re: Looking for two recommendations. Best retro gaming stick and best gaming pc or laptop.

If you're talking about a fight stick then I can't help you there. But a joypad that is good for retro games then I'd go with 8bitdo sn30. It has a better feel than xbox or dualshock4/dualsense for me when emulating 8/16 bit era games. Plus it makes for a good switch controller.

I usually build my own PCs so I would not feel comfortable giving suggestions on a pre-built, but looking at the recommendations on the game you mention, I think you could go cheap there.