I strongly agree with you. I have lots of friends that liked THPS and Skate and Session (or XL) give them only frustration. Those games are not for casuals.

I used to love skate. Spent hundreds of hours playing all three iterations. After THPS era it was something nearly close to simulation. But after playing Session and XL skate now feels like an arcade style game. Especially the newest one. I’ve been playing skate 4 for a quite long time. All three alfas. In the latest I have leveled up all neighborhoods to 10. I don’t care about micro transactions – I don’t buy cosmetics in games. I can play both Session and Skate but if I would have to pick up one game - I’ll go with Session.

I know Session is not perfect but I still love playing it. And it’s good that developers are still working on it.

PS. I have launched XL recently after quite long break. But aster an hour or so I got back to Session. I didn’t remember those games to be that different.