The Gamer's Quarter

Lestrade

Okay, so I'm interested in fishing for some inexpensive and quality GC games to thrust into my Wii, so to speak. I owned a GC for a short time, and enjoyed Metroid Prime and REmake on it, among a few others.

What should I get? Ikaruga? Paper Mario? (Seriously, how is it?) I actually kind of miss Luigi's Mansion. I'm going tonight, so answer me, please!

Lestrade · Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 1:06 pm Post subject:

Killer7*

*posting on behalf of Shaper

dessgeega · Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 1:36 pm Post subject:

star soldier.
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Ethoscapade · . Joined: 30 Oct 2005 Posts: 276

paper mario is pretty terrific, as are junglebeat, f-zero gx, and the first monkeyball, to name a few.

Mister Toups · Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 1:40 pm Post subject:

resident evil 4 bitches!
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ApM · Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 1:55 pm Post subject:

Paper Mario is pretty okay. The Mario RPGs are the only RPGs I don't hate.

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is frigging excellent.

(Don't bother with Donkey Konga; it is the anti-Guitar Hero. You will never feel quite as stupid as you do while trying to have a good time clapping along to B-I-N-G-O with no children present.)

Pikmin is also quite good.

dessgeega · Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 2:03 pm Post subject:

i think that donkey konga is the better rhythm game, actually.

but yeah, the track selection is all over the place.
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SuperWes · Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 2:19 pm Post subject:

Out of the GameCube games I've got, I enjoyed:

Adventure Island
Alien Hominid
Amazing Island
Animal Crossing (but the DS version kind of negates it)
Beyond Good & Evil
Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg (my favorite non-PSO Sonic Team game since the Genesis!)
Bonk's Adventure
Chibi Robo
Donkey Kong Jungle Beat
Donkey Konga
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
F-Zero GX
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
Gotcha Force
Ikaruga
Kirby's Air Ride (It takes some getting used to, but it's pretty neat)
Kururin Squash
The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Luigi's Mansion
Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour
Mario Party 6 (If you like the series)
Metal Arms: Glitch in the System
Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
Metroid Prime
Mr. Driller Drill Land
Nintendo Puzzle Collection
Pac-Man Vs.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Phantasy Star Online Episode III: C.A.R.D. Revolution
Pikmin
Pikmin 2
Pokemon Colosseum (But only for Pokemon completists)
Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness (But only for Pokemon completists)
Resident Evil
Resident Evil 4
Resident Evil Zero
RibbitKing
Second Sight
Soulcalibur II
Star Fox Assault (Parts are great. Parts are bad. If you're willing to put up with the bad you'll enjoy it)
Star Soldier
Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader
Super Mario Sunshine
Super Monkey Ball
Super Monkey Ball 2
Super Smash Bros. Melee
TimeSplitters Series (just as good on other systems though I'd assume)
Viewtiful Joe 1&2

Tell me I'm a fool!

-Wes
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Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
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Lestrade · Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 2:39 pm Post subject:

Har har!

Oh yeah, Eternal Darkness! I totally want to play that.

Wes, I think you're insane in the membrane.

Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Radirgy may come out at some point.
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Ethoscapade · . Joined: 30 Oct 2005 Posts: 276

the mario tennis on cube is quite good, if not too far divorced from the n64 one... nintendo all but forgot about it though; it's still officially full-price and impossible to come by.

Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

I have heard good things about Super Mario Strikers.
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

If forced to give up most of my collection, I would still hold onto the following games (console specific only):
Killer 7 (that other version dosen't count)
P.N.03
Space Raiders

Almost all of those can be had for less than $10 too.

Crystal Chronicles is also really good if you have the proper hookups.

Also, Wes needs to be more discriminating.
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helicopterp · . Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 1435 Location: Philadelphia

I really, really like my Gamecube and its games. Excluding Metroid Prime, which you say you already played, a top 5 would be:

Pikmin
Ikaruga
Paper Mario
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Resident Evil 4

Mario Strikers and Mario Tennis are both wonderful for multiplayer.

Killer7 and PN03 are very difficult to get into because of the controls in each one, if that makes a difference to you. I was surprised to find that it made a difference for me. I still haven't made it very far into Killer7, but I ended up really digging PN03 once I got used to it.
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SuperWes · Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 4:30 pm Post subject:

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Wes, you have terrible taste in games.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

SuperWes · Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 4:42 pm Post subject:

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Wind Waker nothing! You've chosen Gotcha Force, Alien Hominid and Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg over P.N. 03. That's crazy. You be eating dinner for breakfast!

My Gamecube collection is pared down as far as it will go: I've got Luigi's Mansion, Pikmin, Wind Waker, the Zelda Collector's Disc, Warioware: Mega Party Games, and Pacman vs. I don't play my imports but on that front I've got Mr. Driller Drill Land which is ok and Tetra's Trackers, which I'm a big fan of.

I played F-Zero GX the other day. Man, it's ugly! The look of it is over-the-top in every conceivable aspect. I remember when I thought that game looked amazing, too. I've never seen something date so quickly!

Cubivore / Animal Leader always looked cool, I thought. It had a great cover.

Animal Crossing is great but as someone said, if you're going to play it on the DS then don't bother. It does have some cool features the DS version lacks, if you've got a GBA to hook up to your GC. (And an e-reader card, if you get as autistically obsessed with the game as I did.)

If you see it for $5, Doshin the Giant is a charming game and well worth a look.

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Wind Waker is possibly the worst Zelda game ever, and some terrible boring tripe on top of that.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Ethoscapade · . Joined: 30 Oct 2005 Posts: 276

wind waker is gorgeous, plays better than any other 3d zelda, and is boring as sin.

also, sega soccer slam > mario strikers by a pretty wide margin.

Faithless · . Joined: 11 Sep 2005 Posts: 153

Wind Waker is my favorite Zelda game, har har!

I'd rather play something flawed and interesting than perfect and afraid.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Wind Waker got so much right it's not funny. If they'd had another two years to work on it it would have been the best Zelda ever. 'With all thy faults, I love thee still'. William Cowper said that. About Wind Waker, probably!

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Yeah, I think a lot of the bitterness regarding Wind Waker is because it was a good game that could have been great with some decent tweaks and more time in development. Or at least that's how I feel about it.

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

I thought it was a great game that could have been OHMAHGOD had it not been so Oh Dear.

It's a bit like how I still love Michael Jackson.

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

In either case it's a "could have been better so easily" kind of situation. That can make you pretty bittersweet about a game that's still a lot better than most others.

(Wind Waker is the one game where I have a pseduo-design doc about how to improve it. I know I kick and scream about fan-stuff along that vein, I still think that most of the changes would make the game exponentially greater.)

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Oh, I'd love to see that.

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

A quick summary:

Easy Stuff:

- Kill the messages regarding what you got out of a chest and shorten the animations for opening chests or receiving items. Maybe play them for the first time that you get X, don't do it again after that.

- Stop constraining travel. Once the player gets the boat, allow them to sail where they wish. Make areas appropriately dangerous and make goals explicit to "funnel" the player; yet still allow the player to move freely.

Medium Stuff:

- Make the sail an activiation (Press (A) to raise/lower sail when at the proper point at the boat) rather than an item, allowing the player to use items while sailing.

Hard Stuff:

- Drop the one island per square design. Make some squares empty and some landmasses straddle squares. This is pretty subjective. I would personally prefer more open water and large islands to knowing that there's going to be one thing per square and having it be something like a maze that you can race your boat through.

Really Stupidly Impossible Stuff:

- Instead of the Triforce hunt, have a huge battle with Ganondorf that then causes the ocean to drain, then have a giant effing map of Hyrule with scattered fortresses/ruins/dungeons, each with a shard of the Triforce inside. (I know this is totally over-the-top and would have taken years and years of time by a huge team and essentially would have been glomming Wind Waker and Twilight Princess into one giant game that would take forever to complete; still, allow me my dreams.)

Mister Toups · Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 6:21 pm Post subject:

Hey Wes Shaper says that you have no taste in games so whenever you recommend games to people you should discriminate a little bit and weed things down to a list 30 games out of consideration for others who aren't as... uh, "open-minded" as you are.
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Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

The best thing Twilight Princess did was to (mostly) drop the musical instrument. Wind Waker really didn't need one. It clunked up proceedings.

Here's my fantasy design document- ignoring obvious stuff like 'add more and better dungeons', 'take out the triforce hunt', 'don't have gimmick items that are good for only one dungeon' etc. and assuming the story is perfect, despite Tetra having to wear a stupid dress and becoming Link's bitch for half the story:

I'd have the great fairies bestow fairy-type things on you, not just bomb bags and wallets. I'd also hide them a bit better, because that's half of what makes them so magical. They don't just live in houses poking out on the sea, jeez.

I'd make the sailing more eventful, too. Obviously. Allowing you to use the telescope whilst in motion would be a start. And I'd try to keep up the sense of swashbuckling mystery, charm and promise the game fleetingly affords you but never quite delivers on. I'd start by making the ghost ship optional to the game, and by not providing a ghost ship map. I have friends who played Animal Crossing for about a year and never found the Wisp- I'd be aiming for that level of elusiveness.

Isn't there some crazy item you're supposed to find and you can't get into the ghost ship without it? But it's something stupid? I'd make it a goddamn ghost key or the captain's rotten head, or the bones of his long-lost sweetheart, or get rid of it entirely. Also, onboard the ghost ship would be something incredible and well worth your time, which I think I talked about in another thread, once.

I'd also make it so you could bump into old friends on the high seas at any time. Why do we never just run into Aryll and the Pirates again? They just disappear until the ending sequence!

I like your 'Ganon draining the sea' malarky. I figured they'd just have the oversea and undersea Hyrules be the new light world and dark world, with the Tower Of The Gods / Forbidden Fortress being the ways in and out. It looked like that might have been the original idea when I was playing it.

Hmm, I just recalled a dream I had where I was playing a version of Wind Waker which allowed you to explore the entire ocean, depths and all- you would find giant fish with cities on their backs, towns carved out of coral and packs of seahorses chasing you, etc.

Personally, I'd also have Ganondorf reveal his true form to be Ganon, and not just turn into Ganon for shits and giggles and then go back to being Ganondorf again. I don't know how the last Zelda have managed to get this little detail so wrong. Puppet Ganon was neat, I guess, but dude. You have the ability to manifest yourself as a giant pig! Why not do it? I would!

The woodcuts at the start of the game depict Ganon as an enormous black boar monster looming over the horizon, so I would have liked to have seen that in Wind Waker's ocean. You have to ride the massive tidal waves created by his punch to ATTACK HIS WEAK SPOT.

JasonMoses · . Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 407

SuperWes · Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 8:23 pm Post subject:

Fine! I'll pare my list down to just the really awesome games:

Amazing Island (Lestrade would LOVE making his own characters. Also it's by Yuzo Koshiro and has really bad music.)
Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg
Chibi Robo
Gotcha Force (Gotta catch 'em all toy robots)
Ikaruga (Second only to Mars Matrix in shooter awesomeness)
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (my favorite Zelda game also - and I did the Brady Guide)
Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour (when paired with the GBA Mario Golf)
Metroid Prime (Best game of all time)
Mr. Driller Drill Land (Worth modding your shit for)
Pac-Man Vs. (Best multiplayer game of all time)
Pikmin
Pikmin 2 (Play the first one to better appreciate it)
Resident Evil 4
Ribbit King
Second Sight ($5, totally underrated and one of my favorite game stories)
Super Mario Sunshine
Super Monkey Ball 2

Tell me I'm a fool!

-Wes
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The Great Unwashed · Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 8:24 pm Post subject:

Metal Arms: Glitch In the System is surprisingly good, usually dirt cheap and the four-player mode (if everyone knows what they're doing) is some of the best multiplayer I have had since SSB:M.

I'll second the Eternal Darkness reccommendation as well, and regardless of the thread-derailingly contentious nature of Wind Waker it's definitely something you should play for yourself.

Smash Bros. Melee, if you don't already have it.

Don't get Super Mario Sunshine.

Don't get Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles unless you have three other friends who also have GBA's and GBA-GC link cables and if this is the case you need to question exactly why.

I would have given my right testicle to have a Ganondorf that could turn into Ganon at will in Smash Bros. Especially if he looked as awesome as he does at the end battle of Ocarina of Time.
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JasonMoses · . Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 407

Ethoscapade · . Joined: 30 Oct 2005 Posts: 276

Mister Toups · Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 9:19 pm Post subject:

Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

simplicio · . Joined: 03 May 2005 Posts: 1091

Hey, shouty thread!

I've really enjoyed Chibi Robo. It's my favorite game on the system.

Super Monkey Ball 2 has great single player, except you have to play it with gamefaqs in hand because there are certain levels that are impossible without it. Like hold up for 1.7 seconds, pause and then unpause while holding up/left and get batted by a moving part through the goal which is floating off in space somewhere. But the ones without impossible level design like that offer great tough-as-nails gameplay.

Mario Golf or Mario Kart Double Dash are my favorites of the sports titles. They're both damn fine, Golf for single player and Mario Kart for multi.

I'm gonna back up Wes on one thing (beside Chibi Robo): Pac Man Vs. is absolutely amazing with 4 people. And shit, I've never seen a videogame lend itself so well to being a drinking game on the side.

Eternal Darkness is a game with some great things to say about horror gaming and control. It's not a great game, and you don't need to finish it, but you should absolutely play it just to see what it's saying. And it's about $5-10.

Wind Waker is partially a great game. I like the sailing thing, which many people don't. Confession: the only Zelda game I've ever completed.

Fire Emblem is better than the last TRPG you played, unless that TRPG was Fire Emblem (the first US GBA one).

Finally, Cubivore nibbles its way a little farther into my heart every time I hear someone talking about NEXT GENERATION BLAST PROCESSING. Its very existence gives me great hope for the future of games in general.

SuperWes · Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 10:44 pm Post subject:

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Eternal Darkness does have the benifit of being both progressive scan and widescreen.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

Ethoscapade · . Joined: 30 Oct 2005 Posts: 276

monkey ball one's single player is the best (arcade) game sega has ever made.

wourme · . Joined: 01 Jul 2005 Posts: 362 Location: Maridia

Beyond Good and Evil (Not GC-exclusive, but that's the platform I have it on.)
Chibi-Robo (Better than I expected.)
Cubivore (It's not just a gimmick--it's actually good.)
Eternal Darkness (Silly at times but very good.)
Fire Emblem (An excellent game, and it just became cheap.)
Ikaruga (I still haven't finished the last stage.)
Metroid Prime (I don't like FPS games much, but I like this one.)
Paper Mario (Weaker than the N64 one but way better than the GBA one, in my opinion.)
Pikmin (Sequel has improved mechanics but killed the story.)
Skies of Arcadia (I thought I was tired of RPGs until I played this one.)
Wind Waker (I think I like it better than TP.)

captaincabinets · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 12:41 am Post subject:

GSL · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 3:45 am Post subject:

Am I too late to weigh in?

I second all mentions of Resident Evil 4 and just want to say that I found Tales of Symphonia to be quite fun as well, especially if you have someone else to play the battle scenes with (significant other, etc.) Also, Rogue Leader is quite good.

Also, a word of caution regarding Ikaruga: Only buy it if you never ever, absolutely do not intend to get the Dreamcast version. That aside, have at it.

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

We all know turning your CRT TV on its side to play games in cocktail mode fucks them up, but is the same true of today's LCD TVs? Because if not that's another recommendation for Ikaruga right there.

I always thought Homeland looked pretty neat, but I never got to play it. It's a Gamecube online RPG where the player whose Gamecube is the server acts as 'dungeon master'.

There was a Kirby tilt-and-roll game which you controlled with a gyroscope-equpped GBA connected to the Cube, and when Kirby fell off the Gamecube screen he landed on the GBA screen! It's a shame that never saw the light of day, really.

Lestrade · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 9:08 am Post subject:

Well I wasn't able to make it to Game Centre last night, but I certainly am going tonight. I'm sort of excited; I love looking for cheap, used gems.

Oooh, shit, I forgot about Twin Snakes, too. I think I could go for some of that. And I'd like to try Ikaruga. And yeah, maybe Luigi's Mansion again.

I would love a bunch of games that I could finish in less than 10 hours. How long is Paper Mario?

dmauro · . Joined: 20 Jul 2006 Posts: 303 Location: Brooklyn

There's a whole lot going on in this thread, so I'll make it easy for you. There are a few games for the Gamecube that you need to play if you have not yet:

Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat
Viewtiful Joe
F-Zero GX

They are all very cheap, and very awesome.