Wonder Boy 3: the Dragon’s Trap, a simple “Metroidvania” style platformer with fun action and enemy design. No deep story, but one of my all-time favorite game soundtracks

Agree, the lack of tactile feedback was awful. It’s like playing on a mobile phone screen today

This doesn’t answer your question, but thank you for the love and patience you have for your son.

That games goes great with a real NES controller, so you can throw it across the room after dying.

Ultima Runes of Virtue 1 & 2 for the Game Boy. Great action-adventure-puzzle games. But very unforgiving, every dungeon is filled with fatal errors. I couldn’t get to the end when I was young!