What's your take on the Gamecube?

What's your take on the Gamecube?

For me I never owned one but looking back at it's history and design I find it a interesting console I kinda of like the design for it's weirdness but they messed up pretty bad not having a built in DVD player. If I was younger when this console came out I probably would of loved it.

Nintendo being edgy.

One of Nintendo's most experimental consoles from a gameplay perspective. Most of their major series, particularly Mario, have entries on that console that, when you take a minute to think about, are puzzling in that they even exist. Like, what magnificent bastard at Nintendo said "our launch Mario title is gonna be a Ghostbusters game?" It's a big part of why I will always love the Gamecube. Developers took a lot of creative risks in general during this era of gaming, and I think that will always have value.

Plus the Gamecube has Kirby Air Ride. Which we still don't have a sequel for.

My thoughts on it, when I was younger, were much harsher. But I never cared for it. I was never one for Nintendo's exclusives, and I had a PS2. There were few games on Gamecube that gave me interest, such as Resident Evil 4 and Rogue Squadron 2. I never even considered purchasing the Gamecube. I hated the controllers, and I'm not one for design, but the Gamecube is a console that I would never have out on display.

Last good Nintendo console in the traditional sense.

We got two proper Zelda games on the Gamecube. Twilight Princess was the last good traditional Zelda game. There was a lot of Zelda on that machine. The collection with master quests. Four Swords. Good times.

Tales of Symphonia was a gem.

I had a PS2 for DVDs so that didn't matter to me.

Good system with some great exclusives at the time ps2 was just a juggernaut and they never really had a chance.

It's fucking glorious.

Edit: Ok, I figure I should elaborate. Gamecube was kind of frustrating to own at the time because it missed out of some of the big third party games (GTA, Burnout 3). However, third party support was good enough to supplement the first party stuff. EA, Activision, and Ubisoft released most of their games on cube, and this was back when they were all still pretty solid. Plus Capcom, Sega, and Namco threw it a bone every hear and there (RE4, Viewtiful Joe, Super Monkey Ball, Skies of Arcadia, Tales of Symphonia, Baten Kaitos, Soul Calibur 2). So while I was disappointed to miss out on some things, I never regret going with GC due to stuff like F-Zero GX, Smash Bros: Melee, WW, TP, Eternal Darkness, 1080 Avalanche, and a good variety of Mario Sports games.

On my top ten list of GOATs, 5 are games I own on Gamecube. It is by far my most played retro console.

I owned all three console this gen (and a gaming capable PC). The Xbox was my most used, the GameCube second, and I rarely turned on the ps2 because it was the worst of the three. On topic, the GameCube was a good console with decent titles. Zelda Windwalker, Mario Kart Double Dash, Super Mario Sunshine, and strangely - I liked Splinter Cell better on the GC as the GBA connectivity made the game better.

Currently I’ve outgrown Nintendo and no longer buy their systems. But I do have fond memories of their previous systems. Well, except the Wii.

The joypad was weird.

Never cared for the thing.

I had a great time with my Gamecube. My Nascar career with 2 to 3 hour races. Two Rogue Squadron games. Had a co-op Madden franchise with a buddy after our swing shift jobs. Playing Tony Hawk 3 with my son. Great system for its time.

Home to the best version of the best game (resident evil 4)

I thought it was a good console. Had a strong library of games and 4-player local support for many of them, even if the controllers were a bit of a miss.

I didn't care for it much. My brother had one and we played some games together on it; but the lack of DVD support and GOD-AWFUL controller really turned me off. Good for Smash? Perhaps - I kept one for that reason - but man that's one poorly designed controller for anything else (that d-pad... and those button layouts... and those triggers that creak and have about 3.4 miles in travel...)

I never experienced the game cube as I never had one but I have to say It is pretty cool looking.

I liked it. It was a good backup to my main system which was the Xbox (I had all three consoles). A big negative about the GameCube though was online. This was the generation where online multiplayer exploded on consoles and Nintendo dabbled, but stupidly ignored their own accessory in every single title but two, that weren’t even their own games.

Highlights were Mario Kart: Double Dash (best MK in the franchise), Super Mario Sunshine, Kirby Air Ride, Zelda: Windwalker, and surprisingly Splinter Cell which added GBA connectivity making the experience better.

Quality exclusives were few and far between though.

edit: whoops, I already posted in this thread lol

An interesting console that aged way better than the N64.

Distant 2nd place.

@sakaixx: what is first?? :)

@warmblur: GORGEOUS system, both in form and function, but it helped to cement the new normal for Nintendo that began with the 64. 3rd parties were rare on the thing, and those games tended to be hand-me-downs from the Xbox and PS2 with very little love put into them. No, you bought the GameCube for Nintendo's exclusives. That said, I did enjoy the hell out of Phantasy Star Online Episode I and II.

Great system, everyone should try the games, especially now that the Dolphin emulator is so far along, but there's very little outside of first party to get excited about.

Controller was even weirder than the N64

That was my first next gen consumer console due to the price. At the time we got it the price was 199.99 and the other two were 299.99. Getting the gamecube at that hundred dollar lower price mark allowed me to get a memory card and a game for the base price of the other two consoles. The gamecube was great minus the big hitters not being on the console like GTA series, Doom, or Fight Night. I think if it had more cross platform games it would've done better than it did back then.

The GameCube was great ! It came out in a few different colors too. Third party support was still there for Nintendo at that time, but what I was playing on it specifically was the Tony Hawk games and the wrestling games. Metroid Prime was a very nicely developed game too.

The GameCube was great ! It came out in a few different colors too. Third party support was still there for Nintendo at that time, but what I was playing on it specifically was the Tony Hawk games and the wrestling games. Metroid Prime was a very nicely developed game too.

The GameCube was fun, I mean it had a good bunch of games on it. I remember playing Zelda wind waker, that was fun. The Zelda games have remained good and release per release they've delivered.

It was an awesome system. I liked games like Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, Animal Crossing, Super Mario Sunshine, Pokemon XD, Metal Gear Solid Twin Snakes, etc.

Great system that wasn't marketed well pretty much.

I owned a GameCube back in the day and really enjoyed my time with it. Times were simpler and I was younger and there's a feeling that I feel we never get back from those experiences. Good times.

I had one when I was a kid. I remember getting it with Smash and Luigi's Mansion. I played it so much back in the day that the analog stick on my original controller is worn out and unusable. It's a great system that I spent many hours on. It has some excellent games that still stand up well today, such as F-Zero GX and Rouge Squadron. Nintendo took some risks with their franchises on there. Others have mentioned Luigi's Mansion and Kirby's Air Ride, but there was also Metroid Prime that took a gamble on bringing that franchise into 3D.

I still have mine. It would be hooked up, but it looks bad on my 4K TV. Even with the component cables. I need a better setup for it. I'll get it back out one way or another to play and celebrate the Cube's 20th anniversary launch in the states.

Never cared for Nintendo games and it didn't seem to have many third party games that wasn't already on other platforms. My brother bought it presumably because he had always bought the newest consoles but I think he only played it once.

Never was a owner back then although my friend had it, played a lot of smash.

As I got older though, I find it an easy to buy broken systems online and fix them. People love gamecube during the pandemic apparently. Very easy to mod with a modchip and play games from a microsd in the serial port 2 with an adapter, or get something called GC Loader which replaces the disc drive with a SD card solution.

Cost effective mods for those who love Nintendo.

I would say it's an underrated console. Which is the last console Nintendo tried to compete with the competition on hardware. The only mistake was the media. The mini disc format has storage limitations.

I really think it is one of Nintendo's best consoles. I've been rebuilding my GC game collection for it, and damn, it had some truly great games.

That was a very interesting generation of consoles. The Gamecube was probably the best designed and most efficient of the 3 overall, certainly more powerful than the PS2, but each console had it's quirks and trade-offs. The mini-DVD was an interesting compromise for the Gamecube that had its' own plusses (speed) and minuses (storage). Obviously the PS2 had substantially more "good" games and dominated the gen in total sales, but if you told me I could only have 1 of those consoles and 25 of it's best games, the Gamecube probably wins. It was also the last time Nintendo attempted to compete with the others in terms of having equal hardware. After that it was gimmicks and then abandonment of the space entirely (moving towards a tablet/mobile platform).

It came after the N64! So they were the early days of glory!!! Fortunately or unfortunately a lot of consoles have already been out after the GameCube.

Funny you say that because Earlier this year, I got a GC Loader board and replaced the cd drive with it. The GC Loader was super easy to install and I was able to play my backed up games via an SD Card.

Ah, the Nintendo Gamecube. I have fond memories of it, personally. I bought the system back at 2004 and the first game I bought for it was Super Smash Bros Melee. I played that game for weeks on end and the second game I bought was Metroid Prime. It took me awhile to get into the game and like it because I was not too fond of the game being an FPS. It felt like someone mixed Halo with Super Metroid. Now, I regard the game as an all time classic, and I wish we would get Metroid Prime 4. Ah, maybe in the future, perhaps. I also got Luigi's Mansion and Super Mario Sunshine, a month later. I managed to get a pretty good collection. Too bad it got destroyed in a fire. I did manage to get some of my collection back, over the past decade. Anyway, I actually like the design of the Gamecube system, although I understand the criticisms of it from other people. And I find opening and closing the drive door to be very satisfying. And the controller design for the Gamecube, I find it to be one of the best for it's time.

I don't think I've touched a Nintendo product since the N64 days.

Gamecube always seemed like it was good but I just don't really know many people that had it. Know more people that had Dreamcast, actually.

I had one but eventually sold it. Aside from the Zelda games there just weren't enough games I wanted to play on it. That's always been the problem I've run into with all the Nintendo systems after the original NES.

@mrbojangles25: The Dreamcast. What a poor, beautiful bastard it was :(

God's own prototype. Too weird to live, too rare to die.

Some of the best games of that era came out on Dreamcast.

@mrbojangles25: One of my favorite books and movies :)

And yeah, crazy to look back and think about how many great games were packed onto a system that only lasted two years. We're two years into a generation now, and it feels like it's barely started.

Looking back it was quite a powerful system and had a good selection of 3rd party. But when GTA was released on PS2 and Xbox it was over.

It was a good console with a lot of potential that really fell short.

The GameCube was my first Nintendo console and was where I experienced that quality that Nintendo was known for. I could see why people loved Nintendo, but it is also where I notice that whatever spark that Nintendo had during that generation and possibly before has not really been there since either the early to mid part of the Wii's life-cycle.

It's my favorite console / most played of all time.

It was the worst console of its time. That's not to say it's a bad console, it's just the library was small and the controller was awkward for anything besides 3rd party games. I only played 1st party games on my Cube; most gaming was done on PS2 or Xbox. Xbox by FAR had the best 3rd party games (in most cases) because the Xbox was significantly more powerful, so naturally I'd play multiplat games on Xbox. Not a single GTA for the Cube, how pathetic! I think the only reason Simpsons Hit N Run is so nostalgic is due to GC not having any GTA games, so Simpsons was the closest option.

@chronogos: I personally think the original Xbox had the most awkward controller, the s controller was better, but not as good as the PS2 and GC. I still love the first Xbox tho, I have collected dozens of games for it. All consoles of that generation had there pros and cons.

I loved it and still do. Just look at the resident evils that were released on the GameCube. For such a small system it handled games with great graphics. Resident Evil 4 originally released on the Gamecube. Resident Evil 0 as well both looked stunning

Loved it, bought it late on in the generation when I got my first job and was able to spend more money on gaming.

I got the console so I could play Resident Evil 4, 0 Remake & Eternal Darkness.

Was worth it for those games alone, who would of thought one of the main attractions of a Nintendo console was horror games

I love it. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle was my first game for it and loved it. Got into playing it when I’ve saw my cousin playing at my Uncle’s house back when I was in 6th grade.