Kid Icarus — Pit's Brutal Climb
Metroid's sibling sent an angel on a punishing climb.
Built on the same engine as Metroid and released alongside it, Kid Icarus (1987) sent the little angel Pit on a punishing climb out of the Underworld to rescue Palutena.
It's hard: the vertical scrolling means falling off the bottom kills you, enemies swarm, and the Eggplant Wizard can literally turn you into an eggplant. The password system became a meme of its own, full of cheeky strings.
Underneath the difficulty is a charming, weird Greek-myth world Nintendo mostly left dormant for decades. For those of us who pushed through, Pit earned his place in the pantheon.