id say the snes it was utterly brilliant and a proper gamers console. gamecube for me was also very good especially because phantasy star online had released on it with the broadband adapter. n64 apart from a few good games was mostly rubbish in the end

I think the WiiU had the two best Nintendo games ever made - Mario Kart 8, and BotW. So, I'm gonna go with it as the best system. It also has the dumbest gimmick, but that doesn't negate the awesome games.

Sorry, but as blasphemous as this sound to the users who say otherwise, I rank the GameCube above the Nintendo 64 as well.

The 3rd party support the GameCube received was CONSIDERABLY better than the N64, whose 3rd party support dried up after 1998. Outside of Star Wars and the WWF/WCW games, what else was there? Meanwhile, the GameCube, which also got Star Wars and wrestling games, had Sonic Adventure 1 & 2, Sonic Heroes, Resident Evil 4, and Tales of Symphonia, all of which were on par or better than the Rare games on the N64. The GameCube was the system that saw Nintendo start repairing a lot of the burned bridges and damaged 3rd party relationships they had with the Nintendo 64, and to a lesser degree, the Super Nintendo. They started cutting back on a lot of their BS and started making a conscious effort to involve 3rd party companies and meet them somewhere in the middle.

As for the First party games. The GameCube introduced some of Nintendo's now bigger and more prominent franchises: Luigi's Mansion, Metroid Prime. It was also the introduction of Animal Crossing outside of Japan because the N64 version was never released overseas. There's also Pikmin.
Furthermore, some franchises that were absent on the Nintendo 64 made their comebacks on the GameCube: Metroid, Fire Emblem (consoles/first Western console release), Final Fantasy (While it only had Crystal Chronicles, it's better than what the N64 got - nothing.), Metal Gear (The Twin Snakes is better than nothing at all.)

Almost every major or signficant A & B tier Nintendo franchise you can think of got a game on the GameCube: You had Mario in just about every franchise/genre he covers, Zelda, both 2D and 3D, Smash Bros., Metroid, Pokemon (that wasn't the mainline handheld games), Fire Emblem, Star Fox, F-Zero, Pikmin, Animal Crossing, Kirby, Donkey Kong (sort of), Eternal Darkness, and Wave Race. All that's missing is Earthbound, Kid Icarus, Yoshi, Splatoon, and Xenoblade. The former two weren't on the N64 either, and the latter two didn't exist yet. The GameCube was the last time Nintendo really tried to give all of their franchises attention and success before they started leaning too heavily on the Wii series, Mario, Pokemon, and Zelda. Since then some of the lesser ones went into hiatus for a long time like Pikmin and Star Fox or just straight up died like F-Zero and Wave Race.

It's a case of quantity over quality. But, there was most definitely quality, some of which was better than what preceded it on the N64.
Melee >> Smash 64
Double Dash > Mario Kart 64
F-Zero GX > F-Zero X
Mary Parties 4, 5, 6, & 7 > 1, 2, & 3
Thousand Year Door > Paper Mario
And what will probably be the most blasphemous thing I say on this post:
Super Mario Sunshine > Super Mario 64

Some people are surprised by the number of Gamecube fans, I'm honestly more surprised by the Gamecube haters. I get that a lot of its first party games were controversial, what with Wind Waker, SF Adventures, Sunshine, and the like, but it had shittons of good games as well, often the best in the series. Melee was the best Smash game until Ultimate, and I still think it has some of the best single player content in the series, and the most polished balance. Mario Kart Double Dash is the only Mario Kart to ever have the ability to multiple racers per cart, had easily the best battle mode, made which racer you chose actually matter to some degree, and just generally feels like the best MK game outside of MK8D. Paper Mario is a no-brainer, TTYD is the best one in the series hands down and will probably never be topped (sadly...).Twilight Princess looked just as good on Gamecube as on Wii and was the last mainline 3D Zelda game to feature a left handed Link, for those purists out there. To rate Gamecube the worst when it has not 1, not 2, but 3 Zelda games that aren't remakes or ports, while Wii U had just one that wasn't an HD remaster or VC port, I just don't get it. It's the home of the first Pokemon home console game to feel even remotely like a normal Pokemon RPG, two of them in fact, and I honestly wouldn't mind more story driven games set in the Pokemon world like that, from a trainer's perspective but not one just trying to beat the regional Pokemon league. What did Wii U have for Pokemon games? Pokken was okay but the only other Pokemon game on Wii U was Rumble and...yeah. Enough said.

As much as Adventures caused controversy, I personally adored it, but if you're deadset on hating it, I don't see why you'd hate Assault, it's a return to form and easily the best traditional Star Fox game that isn't 64 or based off of 64's story. It's the last console we had an F-Zero title for, and a good one at that. It had a totally new IP with Pikmin, which got a sequel on the same console that was even better than the first, and to be honest, I feel like it's the only console I enjoyed playing Pikmin on. I didn't like Pikmin 3, and I really, really miss the c-stick. The original Animal Crossing is the only one in the series to have several fully playable NES games within it, and it had the highest village population cap in the series to date, so it's an easy 2nd after New Leaf for me. Even the haters have to begrudgingly admit Prime was good, but did you forget Prime 2? It's also fantastic, possibly even better designed than the first, even if it lacked a lot of the punch the original game had by revolutionizing the series. I don't care what anyone says, I enjoyed Prime 2's multiplayer. I want it back, expanded, and online for Prime 4. I kind of feel like Mario Party is mostly subjective as to which one's set of minigames you like the most, but while the Wii U got 1 lackluster Mario Party that botched an interesting concept that could have sold the console's hardware gimmick if done correctly, the Gamecube got not 1, not 2, not 3, but fucking FOUR Mario Parties. I played them all, 4 and 5 are my favorites, but the point is that none of them had the car, they all had some interesting minigames and options both involving and not involving boards, so chances are you'd find at least one Mario Party game you liked there. It had some good spinoff games too, like Luigi's Mansion, which has now launched a successful and anticipated series, Kirby Air Ride, don't lie, you miss it, and Super Mario Strikers, easily the best Mario sports spinoff as far as I'm concerned.

And this is before we get to all the wonderful hidden gems on the system. Not nearly enough people played Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, even amongst those that main Ike in Brawl. I love the new FEs, but PoR makes me sort of get where the old school diehards are coming from when they hate on them. Some of you know about Eternal Darkness, but not nearly enough. It's nothing short of tragic that Nintendo didn't try to revive this franchise now that they're courting older audiences with games like Bayonetta. Chibi-Robo's name has been horrifically soiled with that horrible 3DS title, but its debut on the Gamecube is a masterpiece. I could write a whole thread on how underappreciated the game is and why you should play it, but long story short it feels like a Pixar movie. Clearly none of you played either Baten Kaitos game, but I kid you not they're BOTH in my TOP 3 games of all time.

I could really go on, but suffice to say, Gamecube was the strongest system of its day, had the best controller Nintendo has ever made, and as much as people complain about the games, it's completely unwarranted. I love every Nintendo system, even Wii U, because I've made great memories with games on each of them, but I really don't see how one can say that the Gamecube is the worst of them. If I could pick just one Nintendo system with its full library to play for the rest of time, I would easily pick Gamecube over Wii U, easily pick it over the NES, and easily pick it over the Wii. Only with the 64 and SNES would the choice start to get hard. The 64 mostly because of Majoras Mask, my favorite game ever, but if I could keep my Zelda Collector's Edition port of it, 64 would be the next I'd knock off the list. SNES would be tough mostly because of the incredible RPG selection, and Super Metroid, ALTTP, and Super Mario World but Prime beats Super Metroid for me, WW and TP both beat ALTTP for me, and while I'd miss Super Mario World, I actually love Sunshine a lot and think the hate for it is absurd, so I'm not losing too much there. So the toughest part for me really is just that amazing RPG library, but in the end, for me, the Baten Kaitos games top Chrono Trigger. Yeah, I said it. So I don't want to hear it. Pick SNES or 64 over the Gamecube if you like, I can respect that, but the people putting it below the Wii U can not have been there to witness the same gaming history that I did.

Fuck yeah. And you got the 3rd party games on here too. I wanted to cover that in my post, but it was getting way too long. I'd like to point out that Baten Kaitos was made by Monolith Soft, you know, the Xenoblade people. So Gamecube had that as well over the 64. Really, when it comes to RPGs, Gamecube crushes 64 to a paste. And I agree on Sunshine>64

I just want to clarify for the post above that both Baten Kaitos were an effort between tri-crescendo and Monolith Soft, for credits sake, since development was about 50/50 in terms of how the game quality was shaped, Origins even as far as having 2 directors, one from tri and one from Monolith.

My main beef with the Gamecube was that coming off the N64, so many games felt like a huge step down.

On the 64, we got Ocarina of Time, a timeless epic that was like the Lord of the Rings of video games. On GCN we got Wind Waker, which looked like someone threw up paint over an episode of the Powerpuff girls, had crappy dungeons, was shamelessly padded out with filler, and revolved around the agonizing slow and boring sailing.

On 64, we got Starfox 64, an epic space opera that felt like the Empire Strikes Back of video games. On the GCN, we got Adventures, a third-rate Zelda clone with boring level design, ear-bleeding voice acting, and the most annoying sidekick of all time.

On the 64 we got Mario 64, an extravaganza of memorable worlds, tons of variety, and cool challenges. On the GCN, we got Mario moonlighting as a janitor on a monotonous resort setting.

It all just felt so watered down.

Metroid Prime was indeed fantastic, as was Prime 2, F-Zero GX, Resident Evil 4, and Twilight Princess. But those are about the only GCN games I'd call real gems, while that number is outweighed by the number of N64, Wii, SNES, even Wii U titles I'd award the same honour.

Gamecube's games lineup is great! In some areas N64 wins, Zelda, SM64 etc. But then the Gamecube wins in others, Smash Bros Melee is a massive step up over the n64 version. I find the third party games library on Gamecube to be vastly superior also. The n64 had a couple of classics like Banjo but other then that third parties did nothing for me.

Gamecube

Smash Bros Melee
Mario Kart Double Dash
Pikmin
Pikmin 2
Animal Crossing
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
Super Mario Sunshine
Paper Mario Thousand Year Door
Metroid Prime
Metroid Prime 2
Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Luigi's Mansion
F-Zero GX
Super Mario Strikers
Mario Party 6

Third Party

Resident Evil 4
Resident Evil 0
Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes
Soul Calibur 2
SSX 3
SSX Tricky
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
Prince of Persia: Two Thrones
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
Star Wars Rogue Squadron 2+3
Burnout 2+3
Splinter Cell
Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3+4
TimeSplitters 2
Super Monkey Ball 1+2
The Sims 1+2+Bustin' Out
James Bond: Everything of Nothing
James Bond: Nightfire
Need for Speed Underground 1+2
Need for Speed Most Wanted
The Simpsons: Hit and Run
Rayman 3
Sonic Adventure 2
Harvest Moon Magical Melody

There's a lot of N64 games I like, Paper Mario, SM64, Diddy Kong Racing, but Gamecube's library is just so much better in my opinion.

That's exactly how I felt about the software. The first party software felt like Nintendo had lost a step coming off the N64 which, despite having the monumental blunder of going with cartridges, still managed to come off with some very magical software.

Sunshine, I can't ever get behind this game. It didn't feel like a Mario game at all, let alone a 3D Mario game. It completely lacked the diversity that made the others feel like some grand adventure (even the first Super Mario Bros). The variety characterized every other mainline Mario game in existence (is Sunshine even a mainline Mario game?), including most of the not-so-mainline ones (like 3D Land and World). There was something very flat about the game. I got the same feeling from 3D World, but at the same time, it had the diversity - so it felt like a nice throwback.

But for someone a little taller than most, larger hands, the controller always cramped right above my thumb most games. Plus the button configuration made certain fighting games impossible. Try playing Virtual Console games from SNES on Wii with the Gamecube controller, because many of them have three-button transitioning, they don't work very well. Super Mario World was virtually unplayable, but it was still a fine compared to the nightmare that was Street Fighter 2 on the Gamecube controller. It's not just the weird trigger buttons, or the bizarre face buttons that made action games more difficult, but also the fact that the d-pad was more or a less a functional decoration.

Animal Crossing, I'll give that one to Gamecube fans, that one was a lot of fun, and one of the few games that didn't cramp up my hand after 10 minutes, and it was a unique experience that was a lot of fun.

But Pikmin? That's one of those games that seems like I should have loved (I loved SimAnt), but found terribly uninteresting; I think the series has potential, but the GameCube game missed those brass rings. Eternal Darkness? Was as unremarkable as Survival and Horror games get - the historical setting was a nice idea but poorly executed as the game failed to capture the essence of any of its time periods, the action was sloppy, and the insanity system was gimmicky at best (there's an indie game called Don't Starve, that's how to do an insanity system), but its real failing was that it was one of the worst balanced games I've played, ever... it made TMNT on NES feel reasonable.

All in all, the Gamecube was kind of like the darker half of the dark age for Nintendo. But the console was a bit of a stopgap.