Ninja Gaiden

Ninja Gaiden is a platformer/ side-scroller that is very hard to beat.  It has a actual storyline with cutscenes.  It uses the full range of color that an 8-bit system could offer.  The enemies spawn at the most horrible places.  If you dont move forward or back they continue to spawn over and over again. 

It makes me angry when I jump onto a platform only to find that it is not part of the actual platform.  The color and art style is beautiful, but it makes it hard to play the game.  I would rather have very defined platforms han art on the screen that gets in the way of game mechanics.