Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming

The Nintendo GameCube has the best exclusive game library, period

Giovanni Colantonio
By

Today is the 20th anniversary of the release of the Nintendo GameCube, a system with a complicated legacy. Despite having a lot going for it on paper, it was up against stiff competition in the early 2000s. Sony and Microsoft were both moving the industry forward with the PlayStation 2 and Xbox respectively. Games like Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Halo felt more mature next to Nintendo’s typically colorful fare. The sales numbers ultimately tell the story, with the GameCube moving 21.74 million units versus the PS2’s 155 million.

While the cube-shaped console is among Nintendo’s least successful financially, it still holds a fond place in many players’ hearts. And for good reason: The Nintendo GameCube still has the best exclusive game library of any console, period.

Recommended Videos

Only the hits

Sure, that’s a controversial statement. After all, the GameCube’s stiffest competition in that department is Nintendo itself. Consoles like the Super Nintendo have historically been lauded as touting the all-time-best games library. The Nintendo Switch is also starting to mount a strong run at that title thanks to games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. Outside of Nintendo, both the PS2 and PS4 boast an incredible list of exclusives. It’s a tight race all around.

Related

Despite that, the GameCube’s library still shines bright. When it comes to the heavy hitters, some of the best entries in Nintendo’s biggest franchises are on GameCube. Wind Waker was a defining moment for Zelda, Metroid Prime reinvented the first-person shooting genre entirely, and Super Smash Bros. Melee turned the fighting series from a gimmick to a competitive institution.

A Nintendo GameCube sits on a table with Luigi's Mansion.
Nintendo

An era of experimentation

The GameCube era was a space where Nintendo was eager to experiment with game design. While polarizing, Super Mario Sunshine wasn’t afraid to throw the Mario rulebook out the window with delightful results. Mario Kart: Double Dash’s co-op racing is still the series’ most inventive moment. And how can we forget Donkey Konga, a brilliant rhythm game that used a pair of plastic bongos as controllers? For a company known for its creativity, Nintendo was firing on all cylinders in the early 2000s.

That’s especially true when you look at the original franchises that came out of the GameCube. Luigi’s Mansion finally gave Mario’s little brother something to do, creating an unlikely launch title. Pikmin was another strong early GameCube game that found Shigeru Miyamoto at his most weird and wonderful. The GameCube was also the home for Animal Crossing, which had its breakout moment after debuting overseas on the Nintendo 64.

The GameCube was perhaps the last time that Nintendo was truly invested in supporting all of its various franchises. It wasn’t just a console full of mainline Mario titles and Zelda games. F-Zero, StarFox, Paper Mario, Fire Emblem, and more all had strong moments on the system. It was also the last hurrah of sorts for the Mario sports series, with strong entries like Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour and Super Mario Strikers. Few Mario sports titles have risen to those heights in the decades following.

The full roster of fighters for Super Smash Bros Melee.
Nintendo

Nintendo at its peak

It’s not just first-party support that elevates the GameCube. Nintendo landed some serious third-party support, a feat that it’s struggled to pull off ever since. Capcom led the charge, offering up five-star classics like Resident Evil 4 and Viewtiful Joe as exclusives initially (though both were later ported elsewhere). That’s only the tip of the iceberg, though. The GameCube is full of truly bold titles like Killer7, Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, Odama, and Ikaruga, all of which initially launched with an “Only on Nintendo GameCube” stamp. It’s a shockingly rich library of deep cuts that hasn’t really been replicated since.

For those who never grew up with a GameCube, it’s hard to explain just how strong the console’s run was. Every month brought some must-play game that no collection was complete without. While Sony and Microsoft each rolled out a fair share of top-level classics, the innovation present in the GameCube’s lineup is staggering. It’s Nintendo at its peak, both as a game maker and as a prestige company that could entice other companies to give it their biggest games as exclusives.

Now if only Nintendo would give us a way to play those games on Switch.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Giovanni Colantonio
Giovanni Colantonio
Section Editor, Gaming
Giovanni is a writer and video producer focusing on happenings in the video game industry. He has contributed stories to…
Xbox Game Pass gets one of 2021’s best games today
Iron Mask and Shionne attack in Tales of Arise.

The next batch of titles coming to Xbox Game Pass this month was just revealed. Leading the pack of games being added to the subscription service today is Tales of Arise, a critically acclaimed RPG from Bandai Namco Entertainment that Xbox previously leaked was coming to the service.

Tales of Arise was released in 2021. The latest entry in a long-running RPG series, it follows a slave and girl inflicted with a curse as they rise up against the kingdom of Rena. It sports real-time RPG combat, and is one of few games to score a five-star rating from Digital Trends.

Read more
This great indie is a loving homage to the worst Nintendo games of all time
Arzette in Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore.

Most companies like to sweep the bad parts of their legacy under the rug. For Nintendo, that includes some The Legend of Zelda games licensed for the Phillips CD-i platform. Frustrating game design, poor animation, and a terrible controller cemented these games as some of the worst ever made, but that doesn't mean people have ignored them. Some of the earliest "YouTube Poops" were based on footage and dialogue from those games. And now, the new Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore is full-on spiritual successor -- and a Phillips CD-i-inspired controller is coming out to go along with it.

Playing Arzette can sometimes feel like watching a film like Ed Wood or The Disaster Artist, as it's a high-quality reinterpretation of some infamous art. A decent platformer in its own right, Arzette (which is available now) and the CD-i-like controller coming later this year are a unique kind of game preservation that allows a new generation to experience the feeling of playing those infamous Zelda CD-i games without a lot of the baggage.
Come back when you're a little richer
In the 1990s, Nintendo's first foray into CD-based gaming was through Mario and Zelda CD-i games, but the results were disastrous. And the 2D platformers Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon are the two titles Arzette most greatly draws from, although a bonus game pays tribute to Hotel Mario. The Faces of Evil and The Wand of Gamelon were both fairly basic platformers that felt extremely sluggish to play due to hardware limitations and the controller players had to use. Mechanically, Arzette does the necessary uplifting to make platforming and combat feel smooth and responsive to player input.

Read more
The video game industry has laid off thousands this year. Here’s what that means for you
game developer layoffs january 2024 overwatch 2

Layoffs have unfortunately become a nearly nonstop occurrence in the video game industry over the past year. In 2023, over 10,000 workers at game studios lost their jobs, according to data from Game Industry Layoffs. In January 2024 alone, Kotaku reports that over 6,000 developers have already been laid off.

Layoffs at Microsoft hit particularly hard for players, as nearly 2,000 Microsoft developers were let go after years of optimistic promises from Xbox leadership over the Activision Blizzard acquisition, and a survival game project was canceled. While that's been the biggest wave so far this year, we've seen plenty of other companies cutting staff, from Riot Games to Eidos.

Read more