Yeah there's the good kind of challenging, like Ninja Gaiden and many similar action games.
And then there's the bad kind, like Dragon's Lair for the NES or Bebe's Kids for the SNES, which are just broken beyond repair.
Also, once upon a time not ALL movie/tv show licensed video games were bad, in the 8 bit and 16 bit days it was more like a 50/50 chance of being good or bad. Capcom, Konami, Sega and other good developers did a lot of quality licensed games back in the day.
Nowadays almost every other licensed game is THQ. They're turning into the modern LJN.
Oh yeah speaking of which.
If you find any old games with this logo...
stay away.
To quote the AVGN, there's no gold at the end of that rainbow.