Here are some greatly-known ones, primarily in arcades:

• Galaga. The ultimate refinement of early shmup design - before this there was Gorf, Galaxian and Space Invaders, all of which had good ideas but less happening for long term play. After this the genre took a turn towards scrolling games where more production values could be thrown at you. You can play Galplus or the other direct sequels, but it’s more like different takes than improvement.
• Robotron 2084. Same thing as Galaga but for twin stick games which had a bit of ancestry in “characters moving and shooting” games like Berserk before Robotron, but didn’t have it put together into the recognizable twin-stick scenario. The entire genre tries to glue more stuff onto the Robotron template, but it already has what is essential.
• Lode Runner, Boulder Dash. These are pioneers in “action puzzles on a grid with characters and level design”, a genre of puzzle game which is hard to imagine not having now, and is essentially timeless. These two were directly preceded by “Space Panic” and “The Pit” in arcades, respectively, but it was on the home computers that these games found their refined and playable form.
• Sokoban. Sokoban, like Lode Runner and Boulder Dash, is a character puzzle on a grid, but with no arcade elements. Also timeless, though newer takes on Sokoban all add undo and other conveniences. Also worth mentioning with Sokoban is Pitman, which is like a turn-based Lode Runner. It had a nice visual update on Gameboy as “Catrap”. (Early Gameboy releases are a reliable source of old games that people still craved a port of after 1989)
• Outrun. It’s a simple arcade racer. Other games like Pole Position or Buggy Boy could substitute. But aesthetically speaking, the game is The One Everyone Remembers, definitely aged in its sprite graphics and FM sound but still a compelling vision of “driving into the sunset with your girlfriend”, with no extra gimmicks like its 2000’s sequel.
• Zork. A difficulty of exploring the adventure gaming genre is in how quickly it consolidated itself into genre tropes that emphasize niche forms of challenge. Zork, being one of the first entries in adventures, manages to keep it simple enough: there’s a fantasy world to explore and puzzles and some random chance elements. The vocabulary is limited but doesn’t strive to get in your way.
• Ultima 4. Roleplaying is probably the genre that is hardest to make recommendations for since it’s gone through so many fashion trends. I pick this particular one as opposed to any other in the series because it hits a nice balance of conveying a unique roleplaying world and quest style(follow an ethical code to become an Avatar) versus being a simple and playable experience. Ultima never emphasized combat or grind although it has a little bit of that going on, which makes it unique among most 80’s RPGs since the easiest way to pad out these games is to add punishing grinds and gotchas. Earlier Ultima entries are just simple(3 in particular still quite playable), later ones become more burdened by worldbuilding(5 is still worth trying if you want a challenging, sometimes confusing quest). The NES version, though not “authentic” to how the original Apple II game looks and feels, is probably the most accessible port of it. All the Ultima games rely on basic conventions of the genre during this period: write down all the dialogue for hints, make maps of each location. The puzzles are loosely structured and can be sequence broken by knowing what keywords to type or where to search.

And some lesser-known ones:

• Bill Williams’ Alley Cat and Salmon Run. Two arcade games that engage with the lives of the titular animals. Relatively simple but creative and fun to play every time.
• Xagon. An arcade game for the Atari computers styled after the more popular arcade hit Q-Bert, this game uses hexagons instead of cubes and its sense of graphic design still works perfectly.
• The Return of Heracles. The approach to role playing in this game is really noteworthy since it figures things like a kind of board game - there is a lot of RNG, a lot of puzzle solutions that will get your character killed, forcing a new one to take their place - and you are expected to roll with it. When people say 80’s games had teeth this is a good example of it. That might sound bad, but it’s the same kind of tangible risk that made battle royale games blow up in the 2010’s.
• Journey to the Planets. This is a game played because it is hyper abstract in the ways that only early 80’s games were - the scale of objects, the vague representationality, the flashing colors and strange noises that only Ataris could do. The sense of raw experiment shines through this game, and while you’ll probably become frustrated and give up very quickly, it’s about the look and feel. Zelda came along and made things boring.
• Alternate Reality: The Dungeon. This was a high-minded, overambitious roleplaying project that got to its second game before giving up because of publisher issues. What’s special about it? The depth of simulation, mainly. The first game, the City, had weather effects, diseases, alignment, reputation and seasons, but it was a kind of prelude to the Bethesda-style open world in that there were few explicit goals. The Dungeon added in a traditional questline chain, and explored the worldbuilding (a “kidnapped by aliens, forced to participate in a fantasy simulation” premise) in much more depth. If you are going to play one first person dungeon crawler from this period, this is the one I’d go with. It shows its age, but the atmosphere remains striking and unique. One of the first major encounters in the game is your doppleganger, who mirrors your own stats. You can get sick with the “Crystal Death” which makes you stronger but slower until you freeze. If your inventory is full, “The Devourer” will arrive to reclaim memory by consuming your items. The game has big ideas conveyed in a simple way, and the interface only has a few things that take effort to learn: you can get down to the business of grinding, mapmaking, hint collecting and puzzle solving pretty quickly.
• Project Firestart. This is one of those games that occasionally appears on lists of predecessors to modern survival horror. It’s a very fully realized, cinematic take on how to do the genre, despite being stuck in side view and requiring disk swapping to move around the sci-fi, alien-infested ship. It was made for the wrong machine, TBH - it would have blown away a lot of people on Amiga or Genesis. The C64 graphics make it a little weaker aesthetically than it could have been. But I wouldn’t call it obtuse or unplayable at all.

Zork (1980), and Nethack (1987) are fun adventures.

Tbh I’ve tried and most of those games are quite boring aside from exceptions like Mario which are kinda playable. Pretty much all games from that era have a problem in that they don’t respect your time at all and they’re frustrating as hell to play (limited or zero saves, lots of backtracking etc, stuff like that).

• Hero’s Quest: So You Want to Be a Hero
• Quest for Glory II
• Duke Nukem
• Adventure
• Sim City
• Lode Runner
• The Oregon Trail
• Boulder Dash
• Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

Not everyone’s thing, but there are pre-90s shmups that are ok…

Here are some games I’ve played

• Scramble
• Xevious
• Stinger
• Liquid Kids (excellent)
• NewZealand Story (excellent)
• Rastan
• Omega Fighter
• Growl
• Darius I / II
• Gradius
• X-Multiply
• Contra
• TwinBee

Megaman 2 and 3. Super Mario Bros 1-3, Metroid (get a map), Zelda.

Bubble Bobble

Leisure Suit Larry 1-4

Secret of Monkey Island (released in 1990 actually, but close enough)

Barbarian (1987)

Batman (1989)

Space Quest and King’s Quest, at least some of each series but I don’t remember which ones.

Just a few I remember from my old Amiga.

Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! is one of the greatest games ever. It’s a boxing game that relies heavily on reflex and rhythm, and it plays so smoothly you’ll be surprised it’s an NES game.

Mega Man 2 is a classic. Most people claim this or Mega Man 3 (1990) as their favorite. Just some great action platforming, if you like to jump and shoot.

Speaking of jumping and shooting, Contra is another insanely fluid game. I really think its gameplay holds up well compared to even SNES-era games, and its vibrant, high-contrast colors are seared into my brain.

Most great NES games are some type of platformer, honestly. Castlevania is no exception. With a gothic horror aesthetic and a killer soundtrack, it’s honestly one of my favorites to just kick back and play with a drink.

I would also recommend the original Super Mario Bros., if you really haven’t played it. It’s pretty good for an early outing.

Oh and, as a rule, NES games are hard. Arcades made you pay quarters for lives, and since games were $50+ they wanted you to get your money’s worth in restarts. You would do well to learn the Konami code.

Really hot take here: Super Mario Bros (you didn’t mention it in your list).

For a game from the '80s on the limited hardware available at the time, they really put a lot of work into the mechanics of the platforming. It’s an incredibly responsive game compared to its contemporaries.

First thought was shadowrun on the genesis but the internet says that is 1994 which is really giving me a mandella effect as I really feel it was before that but I mean the genesis came out in 89 and im sure I did not get it till it had a price reduction. So we are talking original master system and nintendo and what limited stuff was on pc including commodores. Maybe wolfenstein and man there was a game based on an manga or anime that was pretty advanced for the time and another were I just remember uncle smoke. gah. reading through I second castelvania. I think shinobi and double dragon (sorta have to play two player to get the full effect)

I don’t know how many of these hold up in their own right these days, but these are the formative games I played before 1990.

• Reach for the Stars - The first 4X game. It created and introduced me to a genre that I still love today!

• Dragonstrike - A dragon riding flight simulator set in the D&D setting of Krynn. It was release in 1990 though, so it’s only here if we fudge a little

• Pools of Radiance - The first D&D CRPG. I know for sure this one doesn’t hold up, but it was amazing back in the day!
• Tunnels & Trolls Crusaders of Khazan - Another CRPG, this one also from 1990. It sticks out in my memory mostly because I found a “gatling bow” which would empty your quiver by firing all of your arrows at a target when you took a shot. I also found a never ending quiver. It was game breaking. I’d hit things with 30 arrows per shot and just annihilate everything.
• Kings Quest IV Perils of Rosella. A real time adventure/puzzle/RPG game. First game I played with a dedicated female protagonist!
• Sid Meier’s Railroad Tycoon - Another “Made in 1990” game. It was the first (and IMO, still the best) game in the Railway Tycoon series and I believe it was also the first game in the “Tycoon” genre
• Sim City - The first in the Sim City series, and the first of the “Sim” titled games. I loved it back in the day, even even got to play it at school. It doesn’t hold up very well against later games in the series though.

Recommendations I haven’t seen here listed (so I avoided NES almost entirely):

• (NES,Master System,PC) Pipe Dream:, which is quite fun if you like puzzles.

• The Colonel’s Bequest: A Laura Bow Mystery. It is one of the most beloved adventure games from this era and probably one of the best detective games ever made. Obviously it suffers a bit from an outdated UI but I find the EGA graphics ingenious and charming, doing more with less.

• (Amiga,DOS, Atari ST)Defender of the Crown: If as a kid you liked the middle ages, then this would be what you would think of: fighting jousts, siegeing castles with catapults, raid castles and rescuing Saxon maidens. It is a difficult game though.

• (Everywhere)Maniac Mansion: I think no one mentioned it, but either way it is a fantastic adventure worth your time, not all ports are equal though.

• (FM Towns,TurboGrafx,Atari ST, Amiga, DOS)Loom: A unique graphic adventure where you use music to create magic and solve riddles. Recommended FM Towns for the music, though some ports have voice dialogs which are also great.

• (Master System,Arcade)Fantasy Zone II: I didn’t see a Master System until I was older, but it has few gems worth mentioning, like this wacky shoot-'em-up that has a lot to offer.

• (Amiga, Genesis remake)Speedball 2:Brutal Deluxe: A bit cheating as it was released in 1990, but both a fantastic sports game and probably one of the few multiplayer games here.

• (Amiga,DOS)North and South: A civil war strategy game with comic style elements, a very streamlined strategy, and some arcade mini-games.

• (Genesis)Herzog Zwei: Mix of real-time strategy and shot-'em-up in a well cared package, good graphics, decent sound and challenging enough to keep you playing for a while.

• (PC, Genesis remake)688 Attack Sub: If you’re into simulators and like those tense submarine warfare movies, this is a decent choice. The Genesis remake is newer (post 89) but it is mostly the same with a coat of paint.

• (Amiga)Captain Blood: A weird euro game where you are traveling to multiple alien worlds trying to find your clones to suck out their lifeforce and having to learn alien languages to do so. Very Giger-esque. You can blow-up planets.

• (Master System)Phantasy Star: I got it out of curiosity and while it is rough like the earlier Final Fantasy games, has a nice story and a fun customization approach. In addition if you like this one, check out Phantasy Star II for Genesis (1989).

• (Everywhere?)Marble Madness:A game made to torture you with a marble going through a maze full of traps, but it’s so simple to pick and play that it’s hard to say no. (Not all ports are equally fun)

• (PC,Atari ST, some consoles?) Gauntlet 2: Unpretentious maze combat with nice multiplayer capabilities. Find keys, kill monsters, get gold.

• (Atari ST, Amiga, PC)Millenium 2.2: Strategy game about being a Moon colony in a universe where Earth got asteroid treatment and Mars is full of assholes. Incredible UI (for its time and complexity) and excellent music in the ST version.

• (Computers and 8-bit consoles)Treasure Island Dizzy: Charming graphics, fun puzzles, so-so platforming, you’re an egg.

##Maybe category:

• (Genesis)Sword of Vermillion: It’s a very contentious game as it was praised a lot for not being turn-based, but the arcadey mechanics now seem a bit bland. It’s a decent RPG from that era, and the early 16-bit graphics are a welcome addition.

• (Maybe everywhere?)The Bard’s Tale III: It won’t blow your mind because it was a very loved precursor of the western RPG and has both a nice format and consistent pace. That said, the Bard’s Tale series has always been known to be very hard.

• (Master System)Alex Kidd in Miracle World: It’s like Super Mario but with larger, well detailed sprites and fun mechanics, maybe some of the best to offer by this console before the 90s.

• (Amiga)International Karate+: It is a very very simplistic fighting game that’s easy to pick up but hard to master. There’s better though in the 90s.

• (Amiga)Laser Squad: Great game at the time, spoiled only by the existence of XCOM 5 years later and the fact that the there are very few missions. The UI is rough.

I’ve seen someone else mention these, but I have to recommend them as well:

Maniac Mansion (1987). It’s the first SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) engine game that all its successors use (Indy 3 & 4, Monkey Island, Sam and Max Hit The Road, etc). Really hard game play from what I can remember, and it has a sequel too, Day of the Tentacle (1993), which is absolutely hilarious.

Laser Squad (1988) was among my favourites growing up, they are the precursor to UFO/XCOM (the original from 1993).

Elite (1984), a technological marvel for its time. It’s still playable today, and if you liked any of the other space exploration / trader / miner games (E:D, Star Citizen, X4, Freelancer, etc) you will love this.

King’s Bounty (1990). I could have sworn this was from earlier. No matter. It’s the precursor to Heroes of Might and Magic. Has less balancing than its successors and can get really whacky.

Spy vs Spy (1984). Really fun split screen couch pvp. You set traps in a house with doors everywhere in various places that you hope your opponent will forget about while also hunting the other one and beating each other in a brawl. It can get hilariously complex. But needs another player as there’s no AI from what I can recall.

Creatures (1990). It’s a platformer where you control a cute bear trying to rescue other cute bears from evil potatoes and mushrooms and birds. And that’s where the cuteness ends. Every platformer level finishes in a so called torture level where the cute beat to be rescued undergoes some crazy mutilation by chainsaw, sharks, acid. Has a sequel, Creatures II (1992) and a spin-off (kinda), Mayhem in Monsterland (1993).

Summer Camp (1990). Another platformer, story driven with fun mini games. Has a sequel, Winter Camp (1992).

can’t remember WHEN it came out, might have been 89 might have been 90 but Batman The Videogame for the NES (the first batman game)

absolutely fantastic game, amazing soundtrack, easily one of the best Batman games ever.

Populous, Peter Molyneux.

And (1990) Wing Commander, although I’d guess that you have at least played the sequels.