Old games...before 2005..
Games like Final Fantasy and Zelda are typical. So I'll leave those right out.
I always enjoyed the original pitfall for atari 2600, defender for atari 5200 and there was this one game i can't even remember the name where you had 2 castles and a huge cannon on top and you had to destroy the other persons castle. was the only time me and my brother got along growing up, was by playing that game
Nintendo, back then i could pick up a cartridge and beat the game literally in 2 hours flat. Or less. But there was a few you had to work at and that @#$# of a game was "The Guardian Legend." Loved that game, was so much to do, and you had many upgrades and could get to level 99. I remember farming hours and hours maxing out my level. Double Dragon was also one of my favorites. *Sigh* Why they never made a next gen of that game. Making it into a fighting game killed it IMO.
Sega, one of my favorite games was actually a fighting game, Eternal Champions. They made a sequal I think for the sega cd but never did buy it since i thought the sega cd in general was just a waste of space/time/money. And I loved the shining force series. And of courst Streets of Rage.
Double Dragon. Streets of Rage. Final Fight. Side strolling "kick the crap" out of stuff games. WTF happened? >.>