Let's settle it: These are the 10 best GameCube games of all-time

2 weeks ago 2

A collage of the best GameCube games of all time, featuring Wind Waker, Resident Evil 4, and Metroid Prime

The Nintendo GameCube has become a revered Nintendo console in the years following the end of its life. Now, with the Nintendo Switch 2 adding GameCube games to Nintendo Switch Online, the Nintendo GameCube and its massive library is at the top of people's minds, as people think of all the GameCube games that could get added to NSO. The console is home to expensive games, and a ton of incredible ones, so many that narrowing down this list of 10 best GameCube games was much harder than I anticipated. While I have chosen the 10 best GameCube games, and I feel quite good about the list, every game in this top ten is an incredible game, and the two dozen other games that deserve to be in this conversation ultimately didn't make the list.

One of the great Mario sports titles

The Nintendo GameCube is home to several great Mario sports games, including one more on this list, and Mario Superstar Baseball is a standout among the crowd. At a time when other baseball sims were just okay, Mario Superstar Baseball is an excellent baseball sim, with tons of wacky Mario characters and abilities. It has some unbalanced aspects, like Yoshi being able to catch almost any fly ball in the outfield with his tongue, but due to the large size of baseball teams, the character selection includes some characters that normally don't get to be in the sports titles, like Delfino Islander. The main cast of characters has unique special swings and pitches, adding a ton of variety and depth to the team-building aspect. It also has a pretty lengthy single-player mode where you have to recruit the best team possible to take down Bowser.

Mario Superstar Baseball

Systems

9 Animal Crossing

The OG cozy game

Animal Crossing has grown and expanded over the past two decades since the original game released in North America on the Nintendo GameCube. A cozy life-sim, Animal Crossing uses a real-world date and time system, letting the game reflect the changing seasons and holidays occurring in the real world. It also has fun activities to do, like catching bugs or collecting fruit, and that's where my love of video game fishing originated. My nostalgia for the original Animal Crossing is quite high, but it has some features like Gyroids and NES games, which haven't appeared in every entry in the series since. It also had a great system that allowed you to travel to other players' towns if you plugged in their memory card, which was a pretty solid solution for a time when online gaming was still being figured out on consoles. Animal Crossing is an iconic GameCube game, and it laid the foundation for the series to thrive moving forward.

Animal Crossing

Systems

Released September 16, 2002

8 Super Mario Strikers

The best Nintendo sports game

A late-generation GameCube game, Mario Super Strikers has maintained a reputation for being the best Mario Sports game, not only because of its top-notch mechanics, but because of its vibe. While modern day Nintendo doesn't love letting the Mario cast loose, the GameCube era was a bit different. Characters could have more personality, which allowed for the characters to match the brutal energy of the penalty-free soccer game. Mario and his friends are angry in Mario Super Strikers, giving a feel that this is a real and dangerous sport, and not just something for these characters to do like other sports games. It also follows an arcade mentality, opting to not have penalties of any kind, letting you slide tackle your opponents without repercussions. It's one of the few Mario sports games to have a real competitive energy to it, while still having incredible arcade mechanics.

Super Mario Strikers

Systems

Released December 5, 2005

7 Super Mario Sunshine

The 'worst' 3D Mario is better than most of your favorites

Listen, Super Mario Sunshine has a bad rap, and most people reading this list are mad that it's this high, with some mad that it's even on here. But what some people consider to be the worst 3D Mario game is in fact, still one of the best Nintendo GameCube games. Super Mario Sunshine has some bugs, and there are some poorly designed levels, like the infamous pachinko level. But FLUDD rules as a gameplay mechanic, and I think the cohesive theme makes it stand out.

Super Mario Sunshine is technically playable on a Nintendo Switch, but only via the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection, which was delisted a few months after launch by Nintendo.

Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy are excellent games, but I think there is something to be said about the adherence to the tropical vacation theme in Super Mario Sunshine. Every level and area feels like a connected part of the same place, and while not having that cohesion allows more creativity, it also takes away from the feeling of an overarching theme. It's my personal favorite 3D Mario game, so be grateful that it isn't holding the number one spot.

Super Mario Sunshine

Systems

6 Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

The pinnacle of Mario RPGs

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, which was remastered for the Nintendo Switch, has a large reputation, with people comparing every subsequent Mario RPG to it. That's a reputation it has earned, touting some of the funniest writing ever from Nintendo, along with a cast of creative characters with unique personalities. On top of that, it still uses active-time battle elements from Super Mario RPG, which would later disappear from the Paper Mario games in favor of more gimmick-driven combat, which would later inspire games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The grand cast of characters and fun writing have survived the test of time, and it still feels fairly modern for an RPG from the early 2000s. Still, its the bar that all Mario RPGs are measured by, and only a rare few have hit it in the past two decades.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Systems

Released October 11, 2004

5 The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

One of the most iconic Zelda looks

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker has held iconic status since its release on the Nintendo GameCube, an impressive feat considering the series contains several of the greatest games ever made. The art-style is the main star of the show, using a cartoon version of Link and his friends, tying that with a water-based adventure, creating some of the most recognizable art in all of video games. On top of that great visual style, it's a great Zelda game too, using its island-based world design to have you sailing the open ocean from dungeon to dungeon. The openness of the game's islands also feels like a predecessor to Breath of the Wild using an explorable open-world, since it features tons of optional islands to discover and explore. Whenever someone thinks about the Nintendo GameCube, it doesn't take long to mention The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Systems

4 Metroid Prime

A revolution for the Metroid series

Metroid Prime may have become its own series, but viewed as a mainline entry, it feels like a revolution for the series. The first-person shooting using the lock-on system allowed the Nintendo GameCube to feature a great FPS, without attempting to use the C Stick as an analogue stick. On top of that, it translates the Metroidvania design, unlocking new powers, which allow you to reach areas previously inaccessible, encouraging you to backtrack, perfectly to a 3D FPS game. The inclusion of puzzles and platforming, while in first-person, kept the spirit of the series, in what became a beloved spin-off. So beloved it led to more games, including Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, which is scheduled to launch in 2025 on Switch and Switch 2. While the subsequent games haven't reached the same heights, Metroid Prime does feel like an equivalent to Mario going 3D with Super Mario Sunshine, leading to new gameplay possibilities while maintaining the core experience.

Metroid Prime

Systems

Released November 17, 2002

ESRB T For Teen Due To Violence

3 SoulCalibur II

Featuring Link

SoulCalibur II from Namco was an iconic fighting game, and while it appeared on multiple systems, the GameCube version gets a ton of love for including Link from The Legend of Zelda, with the PlaySation version featuring Heihachi Mishima from Tekken and the Xbox version featuring Spawn from the comics of the same name. The game was praised for improving upon the original, while

also making itself approachable for new players. The main changes were the inclusion of walls surrounding the 3D arena instead of ringouts and the return of the extra weapon system, which appeared in Soul Edge but not the first SoulCalibur. In addition to the excellent fighting, it also features multiple single-player modes, like Conquest and Weapon Master mode. While SoulCalibur games continued to be made, SoulCalibur II remains one of the best in the series.

2 Super Smash Bros. Melee

Another series peak, depending on who you ask

While not everyone agrees that Super Smash Bros. Melee is the best game in the series, the people that believe it is incredibly passionate about it. So much so that it still has an active fighting game community around, despite Nintendo's best efforts to discourage competitive play. The incredibly fast-speed, and seemingly infinite skill ceiling, aren't the only reasons Super Smash Bros. Melee is iconic. It expanded upon the original game, with new characters like Princess Peach and Marth from Fire Emblem. This massive roster is complimented by the trophies in-game, that you collect by spending coins in a gacha machine. These trophies come from a wide range of Nintendo franchises, and there is a solid single-player arcade mode as well. The gameplay has held the test of time for some passionate players, and it's still iconic to anyone who owns a GameCube.

Super Smash Bros. Melee

Systems

Released December 3, 2001

1 Resident Evil 4

Where's everyone going? Bingo?

For most Nintendo consoles, having a game not made by Nintendo as the best game on the console would be ridiculous, but Resident Evil 4 is an obvious exception. A contender for greatest game ever made, Resident Evil 4 changed third-person shooters and Resident Evil forever. On the third-person front, its focus on third-person shooting, even if you have to stop to shoot, was a big departure from the fixed cameras of the original, and it showed how well that action could work in nearly any game. For Resident Evil, it found a great blend of action and horror, along with a happy middle-ground in terms of being scary and campy. While it took Capcom a few attempts to reach the perfect blending again in the franchise, Resident Evil 4 is an incredible game, and one that stands the test of time. The only knock against the GameCube version, where the game launched and was exclusive for a period of time, is that it didn't include the Mercenaries mode added in later versions.

Resident Evil 4

Released January 11, 2005

A stellar collection of games

The Nintendo GameCube may not have lit the world on fire in terms of sales when it originally released, but it is home to some iconic Nintendo games, and it where several mainstay franchises originated. Games like Pikmin debuted on the console, and it features some interesting spin-offs, like Pokémon Colosseum. The fact that settling on the ten games on this list was a struggle, because of how many games could have made the list, really shows how great of a library the GameCube had.