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.
