If there are credits at the end of a game, that is often the goal. Some games have obvious endings, like reaching the end credits after beating the final boss. There were a couple of games that I could not play at the time they were picked, because I needed a required NES accessory, but those were completed as soon as I had the necessary equipment. No! No matter how long or difficult the game in NESMania, I did not move on from a game until it had been beaten.
All those carts had their own license from Nintendo and therefore to me were "licensed games" that should be beaten in NESMania. The multi-carts (where multiple previously released games were repacked and sold as single cart) were also licensed separately by Nintendo. In a few cases, games were rereleased in the same region with different names and were separately licensed by Nintendo (Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!/Punch-Out!! and Stadium Events/World Class Track Meet). When I started NESMania, when I said I was going to beat all the "games", in my head that meant all the "carts".
It began on May 28th, 2014 and ended on February 26th, 2017, totaling 3435 hours of gameplay. NESMania is TMR's quest to beat all 714 games officially licensed by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) console on /themexicanrunner in front of a live internet audience.