Metroid and Super Metroid are great, but REALLY hard without some assistance (read: Maps!) The Castlevania series is good but REALLY hard. The original trilogy is probably the 2nd hardest series of games for the NES, being beaten only by the Ninja Gaiden trilogy. And the 2nd one (Simon's Quest) is good but if you can beat that game without consulting Gamefaqs to figure out what you're supposed to do next, you deserve either a medal or to be committed. Super Castlevania is probably one of the best SNES games ever made, and Symphony of the Night is one of the greatest games of all time.
That would be a winner to get for the Vita. It's $10, but it's worth EVERY penny. This is a decent review of it:
Thanks. I think Super Castlevania and Symphony of the Night just moved up to the top of my retro games list. I have always thought the series sounded cool but I don't think I want games that are so difficult I want to pull all my hair out. I think I'll probably skip the original NES trilogy for now.
I'll probably keep the Metroid games on my list. I can handle pulling up a map on the iPad from time to time as long as I am physically able to progress in the game.
Edit: it looks like Super Castlevania and Super Metroid are out for now because they haven't started releasing SNES games for 3DS Virtual Console yet. I was under the impression that Virtual Console was Virtual Console whether you were playing on a Wii, Wii U, or 3DS. It turns out that this isn't the case. The 3DS Virtual Console games are currently limited to Game Boy, Game Boy Color, NES, Game Boy Advance, 3D Classics(whatever that is), and strangely Sega Game Gear.
Me and my sister actually each had a Game Gear and between the two of us we owned most of the games available on Virtual Console. I really liked that system as a kid but it feels weird to me that those games were a priority over SNES for 3DS Virtual Console. In fact, the entire Virtual Console library seems very limited on 3DS. I hope it's better on the Wii and Wii U. Come on Nintendo! Your legacy is the best thing you have going for you right now. You're suffering from a lack of games. It seems like they could easily get those SNES games running on the 3DS and make a lot of people happy. I actually expected to see N64 games available and I'm shocked that they don't have SNES.
While they're at it they should make N64 and Game Cube games available on the Wii U virtual console. If all their classic games were available from all of their platforms at a reasonable price Wii U owners would be a lot less likely to complain about a lack of games.