Patient Gamers

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, LucasArts, 1988. It's a computer game though. It was never on the NES.

Deus Ex (2000) was popular for mashing together tabloid stories to make a story, but Zak did it first. And it was way cornier. You play a tabloid reporter who is sent to Seattle to investigate a two-headed squirrel when he learns of an alien invasion (whose leader is an Elvis impersonator). The game is awesome and IIRC you almost can't lose at it, at least not now. The game came with DRM in the form of codes written in black on maroon and it was hard to read; when the game asked for a code, if you got it wrong, you were sent to jail for copyright theft. The first time they'd let you out, but the second time ended the game. The one on GOG does not ask for codes. They took that out. You can also die in Egypt to the Sphinx. You can run out of air on Mars. You can soft lock the game on Mars (to avoid this, make sure each of the co-eds on Mars takes an extra tram token with her if she rides the tram, the token dispenser at the other end is broken).

Also, Zak can typically be had for about a buck on GOG sales.

Uninvited, ICOM Simulations, 1986. Another computer game, but this was ported to the NES, along with its more popular cousin, Shadowgate (also an 80s game, from 1987). Short if you know how to beat it. I think they both can be ran in like 20-30 minutes? Zak can be speed ran in about an hour and a half if you're good, and if you're lucky in the mazes, but I'm not sure what the records actually are. These games are long in how they took you ages to figure stuff out before the Internet was a thing.

Hack, 1984, high school students. Not to be confused with the .hack PS2 games (the anime they're based on which later became Sword Art Online). No, this was a top-down D&D type game and one of the first roguelikes (Rogue being the original). I never actually played Rogue though. And Hack was later rebranded to NetHack (though, it's not about hacking online) and you can play it on just about anything. Android and iOS ports exist. I don't think it's on consoles though. But it's a free game, anyone can play it right now. There's probably even a way to play it in your browser. For the longest time, I've said a modern port was impossible. Diablo was kind of based around the same idea (delving through randomly generated dungeons) but Diablo didn't do half the shit Hack did. Didn't do a quarter of the things. Noita is a more modern (Windows only IIRC) roguelike, but it's completely different in form. Still pretty varied in what all you can do. You'll be able to beat the main boss and complete the game after playing for a couple weeks and learning the game, but that is not the main goal of the game. I don't think anybody's figured that out yet. People are still figuring stuff out. There are still mysteries yet to be solved. To the best of my knowledge, Noita has not been "beaten" yet. As in... by anyone. Anyone who can prove it, anyway. Maybe the developers have done so. And maybe some idiot savant out there has, but hasn't publicised it yet. Anyway, Hack can be beat — you delve down 35+ levels, retrieve the Amulet of Yendor (that's Rodney backwards, but I don't know who that is if anyone), which only spawns past a certain level — and then escape with it. I think I did it once? Got the Amulet half a dozen times or more (but not a full dozen) and died many times taking it back up.