My life with Nintendo – Part 3

My story of how I got the GameCube is one of sadness. To begin, I was inside my local Toys R Us (back when they were cool) and was looking around the video game section. Anyone remember how they had you pay for the games in a separate section from the rest of the store? In any case, while I was there, I played a demo station of Soul Calibur 2. It was at that moment I wanted a GameCube.

I quickly returned home to formulate a plan to obtain the system, and, more importantly, Soul Calibur 2. I wanted the GameCube version for two reasons: 1: Most of my friends had that version. 2: Link was an exclusive character. So, sue me! It was also a good excuse to get the new Smash Bros. and Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, which was like the Dreamcast game but with plenty of additional features.

Today this day, Soul Calibur 2 is still the game I would pick as my favorite GameCube title. I played that game more than any other release on the system. Actually, there was just one exception – Melee, which I loved almost as much. I’m still pretty decent – I’ll take any of you on! Of course, that would require quite a bit of work since there’s the title lacks online functionality, but still, I’d take you. I digress…

My best character evolved over time in Soul Calibur. At first it was Link. I was quite good as the dude from Hyrule, if I do say so myself. At the time most people attributed my success to my use of the Great Fairy Sword, admittedly one of the cheapest weapons in the whole game. So then I changed to using the Soul Edge, which drains Link’s health considerably as the fight goes on. I continued to destroy everyone, proving it wasn’t just the weapon.

From there I started playing as Raphael, mostly to combat my friend who is a wonderful Raphael player himself. My Raphael didn’t turn out as well as his, but he’s still my third best character in the whole game.

I later moved on to play as Cassandra, who continues to stand as my best character. I have this odd pattern in most fighting style games in which my best character is always felame. The one exception is Ike in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The rest, ranging from Tekken to Street Fighter to BlazBlue are all women. It’s odd. But whatever works, right?

Moving on, the second greatest game on the GameCube was Super Smash Bros. Melee. No game has been so universally shared between all of my friends. We used to set up tournaments at each other’s houses. The winner usually rotated, but I played a mean Sheik – that was for sure. The only problem was that my friend played a better Mario/Yoshi. Out of all my friends he still one of two people who can beat me. Unfortunately, Brawl doesn’t share the same appeal that Melee does for me, though that’s a story for another time.

As I mentioned previously, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle was another game I was greatly interested in, so it ate up most of my time. It is indeed very similar to the Dreamcast version, but it does contain more features. Most of them were focused in the chao area. You could finally name them, the shop was available, and there may/may not have been extra costumes – I never tried to unlock them. I definitely played the heck out of this game. At the time (before my memory card underwent a ton of formatting), I completed every level, but I had “A” grades on all of Sonic’s stages -including that darn “Crazy Gadget” level with the most broken camera of all time, might I add! Despite that, I had a wonderful time with the game. I know some fans immensely dislike the 3D Sonic games and with good reason, but I believe that the Sonic Adventure series were the only two enjoyable ones.

Besides those three titles, I played most of the Mario Party games, purchased all of the Resident Evil remakes (which I never finished), and Mario Kart more recently. I should mention that I never owned any of the Zelda games for GameCube. I played Wind Waker once or twice and it never caught me, though I may buy it eventually just to play through it. I feel like I should, after all.

Other than that, I never played any of the major GameCube titles. I didn’t play Super Mario Sunshine, Kirby, Donkey Kong, or Pikmin. My Nintendo experience is extremely limited if you haven’t noticed by now. In fact, the DK and Metroid games on the Wii were my first time with those franchises. Looking back, I do feel like I’ve missed out a lot of good games. One day I do plan on going back and playing through all of these titles. If you have any suggestions, please, leave them in the comments section.

Also, what are your favorite memories with the GameCube?