Hydlide series

1 and 3 are games I actually completed back in the day. Never played 2. There are bad reviews for these games out there, but for me they were great games at the time. 1 is nice and short, 3 is a much bigger game, you will need to save progress, I had a fm-pac (you can also use a pac) for saving to s-ram which is convenient, it can also save to tape, but never tried that. I had the msx2 version, but I like the msx1 version too like how it doesn't just flip screen. The music is great, especially during the opening sequence/title.
2 looks really interesting, but is that Japanese only? (3 actually has English mode).
If you are a fan of hydlide series, Virtual Hydlide (sega saturn) might look like a dream game, but it is really bad. It's the only game that I have ever thrown into a bin.