Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos

The sequel that maintains (or slightly increases) all of the elements the first got right while completely improving all of its weaknesses. If you want a difficult but fair action platformer (this might be the best in that NES genre) with fun levels and great music, all wrapped up in super professional (if insane) storytelling, this is it. The only thing that holds me back is something about the theme here doesn't have me coming back the way Mega Man or Castlevania does.

Well, at least you can climb now, and they've given the jump a bit more airtime, but they've also made the hitbox on the sword slash a bit less cooperative. Enemies are about as obnoxious as ever, and now you've got the occasional stage environment gimmick to bog things down on top of that. It's fine if you especially like this particular sort of challenge, though I'm not sure how much I do.

better but still too hard

On the gameplay level I have to admit that this is a pretty typically lazy give'-em-more-of-the-same sequel. But it just so happens that in this case what they're ladling me more of just happens to be pretty damn good, so the end result is still perfectly playable. The game also has the unique distinction of having probably my favorite opening cutscene of the entire NES library.