For this list, I've imposed only two rules: The games must still be fun to play today, and only games which were commercially released during the NES's heyday are considered. That means no pirates, ROM hacks, bootlegs of unreleased titles or contemporary homebrews are eligible.
Another one that I think everybody's played; in no small part because almost all of them got it with the system, either on a two-cart with Super Mario Bros. or on a three-cart that also included World Class Track Meet. To most of us, it was also our first exposure to a light gun peripheral - the Zapper, which detected targets by blanking out the screen for a brief moment and then flashing a bright spot where the targets were to register hits. Duck Hunt has three modes - one duck, two ducks and clay pigeon shooting, and of course, nobody will ever forget that dog, who taunts you every time you miss a duck or waste all your bullets each round. The game is a little one-note, but it's a fun and addictive little game. Sadly we never got a home port of the arcade version, VS Duck Hunt, which cycled through game modes between rounds and even had an exclusive bonus round (where you could get revenge on the dog at long last if you didn't mind losing points).
Shoot-em-up style games were already a pretty well known genre well before the NES hit the scene, and it continued to get quite a few throughout its life, with a lot of them being unremarkable ports of arcade games with pretty basic gameplay and minimal variation, so I tend to glance over a lot of them. Sqoon is a relatively early one for the NES, but its design is anything but basic - there's quite a lot of mechanics that you'll have to juggle to get far. There are the usual waves of giant enemies to blast away for points, but other sea life appears too - orcas are harmless to you, but will eat up any people you blast free by bombing buildings, crabs drop gold bricks you can collect and turn in for points, and the odd sea slug will drop a magical necklace if you bomb it enough times, which grants a 1-up and a chance at a bonus stage. In between all of this, you'll have to free captured humans, touch them to bring them aboard, and once you have nine of them, drop them off on the "floating island" that appears (one by one, with the B button), which is the only way to replenish your constantly dwindling oxygen supply and gain powerups to upgrade your weapons. The aforementioned gold serves as a more efficient means of doing this - all you need is one live human and a gold brick to get the island to appear again, though this will only refill your oxygen and not upgrade your weapons (which makes it a better option when you've already hit max upgrade). Sqoon is chaotic and outlandish even by shmup standards, but undeniably unique and quite a lot of fun once you get into the swing of it.
A lot of gamers in the late '80s thought it a bit strange that there was a Goonies II game, but there wasn't ever a Goonies I. Well, there was, but it never got a cartridge release in North America (though it did appear as a Vs. System game and on a few Playchoice-10 arcade units). It's a fairly short, stage-based game where you play as Mikey and are out to rescue the other Goonies, but that wasn't a bad thing when it was well-made and fun. You get quite a few creative powerups throughout, both temporary (slingshot powerups, health potions) and more useful ones - Headphones to block the Fratelli brothers' bad singing, fireproof suits and raincoats. Sort of a midpoint between the definitive-ending era of games and the old looping arcade action titles.
114. Marble Madness (Atari/Rare, 1989)
113. Lode Runner / Super Lode Runner (Hudson Soft, 1984-1987)
Lode Runner is a classic computer game that saw ports to numerous platforms (and continues to get them today). The NES had a port of its own, but the Famicom got another (a port of Championship Lode Runner - a collection of extremely difficult fan-made levels) and the Famicom Disk System had two more still - enhanced versions with redone graphics and sound, new levels and scoring mechanics called 'Super Lode Runner'. No matter which one you played, though, its good arcade action with a touch of strategy - having to outmaneuver or trap enemies while you gathered up all the gold in the stage was a surprisingly difficult endeavor at times, though in the FDS games, it was at least a challenge you could tackle with a friend at your side.
112. Kyatto Ninden Teyandee (Tecmo, 1991 in Japan)
If you watched a lot of cartoons in the '90s, you might remember Samurai Pizza Cats - a dub/recut of the Japanese anime "Kyatto Ninden Teyandee" that ramped up the silly humor to the nth degree. I also got into emulation around that time, which led me to learn that there was a game tie-in to the show, so it quickly became one of the very first Famicom games I emulated. It does a good job recreating the feel of the show, with animated cutscenes between stages and before boss fights, several recognizable characters as bosses and recreating most of the protagonists' iconic special moves. Even the Rescue Squad appears, allowing you to traverse various obstacles the main cast can't - punching through blocks, tunneling through dirt, swimming through the water at great speed or even flying for short distances. While not an amazing game on its own, the fact that it captures the feel of the show so well and has such nostalgic factor will always earn it some points in my book.
Excitebike is one of the more popular early NES games, mostly remembered for its editor that allowed players to build and race on their own custom tracks (though not save them - the peripheral that allowed it was never brought over and Nintendo never implemented an alternate option). I did consider including it on the list, but after playing the Famicom Disk System exclusive VS. Excitebike, I can't do it in good conscience. The quality contrast between the two versions is night and day - VS Excitebike includes a more exciting single-player mode (having to qualify for time in a solo run before you're allowed to run a race against the CPU, plus truck-jumping bonus stages), two player competitive play, music during gameplay, and the ability to save custom tracks directly to the disk. It's criminal that this version was never localized until the Wii U rolled around, as it makes the original game look terrible by comparison!


(There is also an enhanced advertisement-laden update on the Disk System called "Kaettekita Mario Bros" if that's your sort of thing.)