When I was about seven years old my dad took me and my brother to Circuit City to buy the wonderful, now outdated video game console Nintendo GameCube. It was my older brother's/my main source of entertainment for years to come: playing games from franchises such as the Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda, Kirby, Sonic the Hedgehog, and many more.
A man on Craigslist has been kind enough to bless me with a GameCube of my very own this July weekend and to celebrate, I decided to list my top six favorite GameCube games, in order to persuade other gamers to add these games to their collection.
6. Harvest Moon: Magical Melody.
One of the most popular Harvest Moon games, HM:MM has brought me many hours of joy in my late middle school days. You play a person who has emigrated to a small, desolate town to begin anew as a farmer. Your character helps build the once depressing town into a thriving, prosperous municipality. Your character may choose a townsperson of the opposite sex to marry as they go through their journey rebuilding a civilization.
5. Super Smash Bros. Melee.
Arguably the most popular GameCube game ever released, Super Smash Bros. Melee brings all the Nintendo characters together into one game to do what video games first did: fight. Up to four players may choose a fighting location from different Nintendo games, including Hyrule castle from the Legend of Zelda games, Pokémon stadiums, and the home of Ness and Lucas. There are a variety of power-ups players can acquire to further annihilate their friends, or if they rather, a computer enemy.
4. Luigi’s Mansion.
Another timeless GameCube classic, Luigi’s Mansion takes an unusual turn in the Mario Bros. series of games and focuses on Luigi rather than Mario. In this game, Luigi has inherited a large mansion, only to find that it’s infested with ghosts! Not only that, but Mario has been taken hostage inside the mansion! Luigi must team up with Professor E. Gadd, a ghost expert, to rid his mansion of ghosts and save his brother Mario!
3. Kirby Air Ride.
What is a list of excellent games without a staple racing game? Kirby Air Ride is another incredibly popular GameCube game. It has a simple structure -- choose a color for your Kirby character (required if you are playing with friends -- up to four players at a time), choose a vehicle, and race in a selection of courses. There is a story mode available for those of us who need a clearer goal to reach. Kirby Air Ride is one of those simply fun games that is terrific when you’re alone or with friends.
2. Super Mario Sunshine.
The Mario Bros. franchise makes good games, OK?! Super Mario Sunshine received mixed reviews, but was the first game I ever popped into our shiny, new, black plastic console back in 2004. In this game, Mario has been framed for spreading graffiti around Delfino Island, a popular vacation spot. Worse than that, Princess Peach has been kidnapped and Mario must save her while solving the issue of the graffiti tainting Delfino Island!
1. Chibi Robo!
Chibi Robo is my personal all time favorite GameCube game, partially because it is different than any other game I have ever played in my life. The premise of Chibo Robo is that you are a tiny, salt-shaker-sized robot that is impulsively bought by the father of a dysfunctional family -- an unemployed husband addicted to buying toys, a stressed and irritable housewife, and a young daughter who thinks she’s a frog. Chibi Robo, the aforementioned tiny robot, is left to clean up the house and save the family from falling apart. It’s incredibly cute while also challenging, but not too challenging.
Even though GameCubes are sadly no longer in production, they are still a wonderful gaming console and, frankly, they should be government-issued to every family in America.
And thank you, Terry from Craigslist, for the GameCube.
