Summary
- Luigi's Mansion remains a charming, atmospheric ghost-hunting adventure with unique gameplay mechanics and enduring appeal.
- Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door's sharp writing, world-building, and strategic combat system still make it a top-tier RPG experience.
- Super Smash Bros. Melee's accidental complexity has solidified its status as a competitive and party game favorite after two decades.
The GameCube was a bit of a misunderstood gem in its heyday, stuck between the PS2 juggernaut and the rising Xbox while also being shaped like a lunchbox that screamed “handle with care.” But despite not topping sales charts, it housed some of Nintendo’s boldest, strangest, and most enduring experiments.
Best Nintendo GameCube Games, Ranked
The Nintendo GameCube may not have been as successful as the Wii, but it still had some fan favorites. Here are the console's best games.
Now, decades later, a handful of these games still play like they never left. Some aged like wine, and others like yogurt, but these particular GmeCube games are practically immortal when compared.
7 Luigi's Mansion
A Flashlight And A Vacuum Were All He Needed
Luigi's Mansion
- Released
- November 18, 2001
WHERE TO PLAY
Luigi might’ve gotten the “scaredy-cat” treatment compared to his brother, but Luigi’s Mansion gave him something better—a personality. This charmingly spooky ghost-hunting adventure holds up far better than anyone expected. Part of that comes down to the game’s unusually atmospheric design. The entire mansion feels like a character, boasting creaking floorboards, dynamic lighting, and a sense of space that makes every room feel hand-crafted.
This was a launch title, and it had dust particles swirling in flashlight beams and subtle environmental storytelling baked into the wallpaper. Combat was puzzle-like, involving weakening ghosts by revealing their hearts and then wrangling them like spectral marlins with the Poltergust 3000. Even by today’s standards, it’s tactile and satisfying. What’s aged best here isn’t just the visuals or the gameplay loop—it’s the mood. This is a family-friendly horror game that managed to feel playful and eerie at the same time, and somehow, two decades later, it still has more charm in its pinky finger than most modern haunted house games.
6 Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
A Thousand Years Later, It's Still Top Tier
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
- Released
- October 11, 2004
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- E For Everyone Due To Mild Cartoon Violence
- Developer(s)
- Intelligent Systems
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo GameCube
Nintendo brought this title back with a remaster, but it didn’t really need fixing. The Thousand-Year Door holds up because it was never relying on visuals or gimmicks in the first place. The heart of this game lies in its razor-sharp writing, hilarious world-building, and turn-based combat system that actually rewards timing and strategy over button-mashing.
From wrestling under the alias of "The Great Gonzales" to navigating a town literally built atop a criminal underground, this game constantly messes with RPG conventions in ways that still feel fresh. It juggled comedy and creepiness with whimsy and dread, sometimes within the same scene. And somehow, every side character, even the weird little ones like Ms. Mowz or Doopliss, had more depth than entire casts in other RPGs. If anything, its return in 2024 only proved how little needed to change. Everything from the snappy dialogue to the stage-battle presentation still feels clever today, because The Thousand-Year Door was never just trying to follow trends; it was too busy setting them.
5 Resident Evil 4
The Chainsaw Still Sounds Just As Wrong
Resident Evil 4
- Released
- January 11, 2005
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language
- Developer(s)
- Capcom
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
Resident Evil 4 didn’t just age well; it changed the aging process entirely. When this dropped on the GameCube, it reinvented third-person shooters by shifting the camera over the shoulder and tightening the action. That “tightness” still defines modern horror-action games today, but even beyond its influence, the original version still plays beautifully, especially if players go back to the Wii or GameCube ports for the rawest version of the experience.
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Capcom's Resident Evil is the most well-known horror franchise, and fans are likely to enjoy these games.
What helps it hold up isn’t just nostalgia or its industry impact. It’s that it still knows how to build dread in between action set-pieces. The opening village siege still feels overwhelming in the best way, and those pitchfork-wielding Ganados are just as aggressive as ever. The pacing is immaculate—backtracking through a previously cleared area only to hear that chainsaw rev again is enough to spike one's blood pressure in 2025, just like it did in 2005. Even with remakes and re-releases galore, the original Resident Evil 4 still stands tall, remaining weirdly humorous and mechanically pristine. When a horror-action hybrid works this well, time just can’t kill it.
4 Super Mario Sunshine
Sunshine Never Really Goes Out Of Style
Super Mario Sunshine
- Released
- August 26, 2002
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- E For Everyone due to Comic Mischief
- Developer(s)
- Nintendo EAD
- Platform(s)
- GameCube
- Genre(s)
- Platformer
Super Mario Sunshine was a wild swing for Nintendo, and most of it connected. The tropical aesthetics still look gorgeous even today, and not in a “for its time” kind of way. The water physics were also legitimately ahead of the curve. The world of Isle Delfino still feels alive, featuring NPCs who react to Mario's actions and environments that are interconnected rather than stitched together like discrete levels. Then there’s FLUDD. What should’ve been a gimmick turned into one of Mario’s most versatile toolkits ever, letting players jetpack across gaps, clean up messes, and hover with precision. It's also what gives the platforming here a unique rhythm—one that hasn't been replicated since.
Sunshine is a game that dares to be messy, literally and figuratively. It might lack the polished cohesion of Galaxy or Odyssey, but the fact that people are still speedrunning it, debating it, and defending it passionately speaks volumes. For a platformer this experimental to still hold interest after 20 years, it's simply impossible to suggest that it aged poorly.
3 Super Smash Bros. Melee
The Hitboxes That Launched A Thousand Tournaments
Super Smash Bros. Melee
- Released
- December 3, 2001
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T For Teen due to Comic Mischief, Mild Violence
- Developer(s)
- HAL Laboratory
- Platform(s)
- GameCube
- Genre(s)
- Fighting
This GameCube title didn’t just age well; it fossilized into a competitive artifact. Super Smash Bros. Melee still commands a thriving tournament scene two decades later, despite the fact that it was never meant to be an Esports darling. In fact, the very reasons it’s loved—incredible movement tech, ridiculously precise hitboxes, and brutal execution barriers—are all happy accidents.
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Wave-dashing, L-canceling, Directional Influence—these aren’t just mechanics, they’re rituals, and they’re only possible in Melee. The game runs at 60 frames per second with near-zero input delay, which is why, no matter how pretty the new entries look, competitive players keep coming back to this one. But even outside of the pro scene, Melee has aged remarkably well as a party game. Its roster is timeless, its stages are iconic, and its pace is blistering. It's one of those rare cases where unintentional complexity became its greatest strength.
2 Metroid Prime
Scanning Planets And Shattering Expectations
Metroid Prime
- Released
- November 17, 2002
- ESRB
- T For Teen Due To Violence
- Developer(s)
- Retro Studios, Nintendo
- Genre(s)
- First-Person Shooter, Metroidvania
First-person Metroid sounded like heresy in the early 2000s, but Metroid Prime didn’t just justify the format; it nailed it so hard that it’s still the gold standard. Retro Studios somehow translated the series’ 2D isolation and exploration into a fully 3D space without losing its soul. In fact, some argue it enhanced it.
The HUD is seen through Samus’s visor, complete with scan logs and moisture droplets. The sound design is muted and alien, filled with ambient hums and synth pulses. And exploration is deliberate, almost meditative, as players loop back with new tools to crack open previously inaccessible paths. It’s not about blasting everything in sight; it’s about deciphering a planet’s secrets. Even today, Metroid Prime feels unusually immersive. It doesn’t hold your hand or rush; it just quietly builds its world one scan at a time, letting players piece together its quiet sci-fi melancholy. When people say a game was “ahead of its time,” this is what they mean.
1 The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Cel-Shaded, Sea-Soaked, And Still Stunning
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
- Released
- March 24, 2003
WHERE TO PLAY
Back in 2002, people weren’t ready for The Wind Waker. After the brooding tone of Ocarina and Majora, a cartoonish Link with googly eyes and exaggerated animations felt like a betrayal to some fans. But those complaints aged faster than milk, because this game’s visual style proved to be timeless.
The cel-shaded look wasn’t just aesthetic flair; it was a deliberate choice to create a world that could outlast trends. And it worked. Wind Waker still looks stunning, even before the HD remaster was released. The ocean sparkles, the clouds cast shadows across waves, and Link’s expressions sell every moment of curiosity, fear, or triumph. That said, there’s more here than just surface beauty. The open sea invites exploration in a way no other Zelda title did at the time. The Great Sea felt huge and mysterious, and even though the sailing segments get flak for being slow, they give players the space to soak in the game’s melancholic tone. The ruins of Hyrule lie beneath the waves, and every island feels like a remnant of something lost.
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