Top 10 GameCube Games In My Backlog

I’ve covered my Top 10 Favorite GameCube games here on the blog before. The Nintendo GameCube certainly provided me a wealth of enjoyable games that I remember fondly to this day. But what about the games I never got a chance to play on Nintendo’s iconic cube-esque console? Well, read on to discover the Top 10 GameCube Games In My Backlog.

10. Doshin the Giant

• Developer: Param & Nintendo
• Release: September 20, 2002 (Europe)

My earliest memory of learning this game existed comes from Super Smash Bros. Melee, where there’s a trophy of the Giant. I thought the giant looked kind of weird. I mean, he’s a huge naked yellow humanoid, that’s not something you see every day. To this day, I don’t really know much about this game, other than the fact that it only released in English in the PAL region, never North America, and that it’s some sort of sim/god game. Since I was in the NTSC region with an NTSC GameCube, and the GameCube doesn’t allow playing games from a different region, I never was able to play it!

It remains a GameCube game I am interested in trying, due to my inability to play it when it originally came out.

9. Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights

• Developer: Heavy Iron Studios
• Release: September 16, 2002

I think I saw an ad for this as a kid. At the time I thought it was so cool because I liked Scooby-Doo, and seeing the characters in 3D in a video game was so cool. Then I forgot about it. Now, I realize it exists again and I gotta say, I kind of want to try it even though it’s almost guaranteed to be…not great.

It might be a passable game, maybe even a good game, but I don’t think “Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights” is liable to be anyone’s Game of the Year or anything like that.

8. Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance

• Developer: Snowblind Studios
• Release: November 20, 2002

Honestly my reasons for wanting to play this game seem pretty flimsy. I recognize the Baldur’s Gate series, having heard great things about the PC titles yet never having played those either. I enjoy fantasy settings and the occasional hack ‘n’ slash game. That’s about the entirety of my reasons for including this one. The co-op mode also sounds like it’d be fun, but I’ve yet to lure someone in to play this one with me. Maybe PatronusLight and I can play through Dark Alliance together someday!

7. Battalion Wars

• Developer: Kuju Entertainment
• Release: September 19, 2005

For some reason, I never had this game. But, I’m almost positive I had the sequel on the Wii, either that or I borrowed it from a friend for an extended amount of time. Actually, now that I think about it, I definitely borrowed it from a friend. Thanks, Brad! Anyway, I’d like to experience the original Battalion Wars someday. I remember the sequel being pretty fun, for the most part. There were a few frustrating missions for young bsinky, but I don’t know if that was due to a childhood lack of skill or legitimate difficulty.

Either way, the first Battalion Wars has always piqued my interest.

6. Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Plus

• Developer: Sonic Team
• Release: September 15, 2004

Phantasy Star Online was originally a Dreamcast game, before being ported to the GameCube as “Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II,” and featured additional content compared to the Dreamcast version. Later, another enhanced version came out on the GameCube, the title that snagged this spot on my list, “Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Plus.”

As the title suggests, online play was a key factor when the game came out. I’ve long since missed the boat on that, I believe all the official servers shut down years ago, although it sounds like there may be fan-maintained servers available. However, one of the improvements made in the jump from Dreamcast to GameCube was the addition of local split-screen support!

The split-screen here intrigues me. The idea of getting a few friends together and playing this sounds like it could be fun! Although, the I imagine we would be emulating it and using Dolphin’s NetPlay to play over the Internet, so that’s a lot of overhead and lags/stutters would hurt the experience. So that may never happen, but maybe PatronusLight and I can try this in local split-screen someday.

5. Evolution Worlds

• Developer: Sting Entertainment
• Release: December 2, 2002

This is the second game on this list that was originally a Dreamcast game. Or rather, it was originally two Dreamcast games. After the death of the Dreamcast, the two games were ported to the GameCube and released as Evolution Worlds, although the first game was trimmed down in the process, possibly to get Evolution Worlds to fit on a single GameCube disc. It’s a JRPG, and thus promises a considerable story, dungeons to explore, and enemies to defeat in turn-based combat.

Evolution Worlds isn’t reviewed all that highly, sitting at a 63 on Metacritic as of this writing. But, the User Score on Metacritic was 8.0, so that’s got to count for something, right? Personally, I like JRPGs, so I’m hoping I’ll find Evolution Worlds to be more like the 8.0 User Score than the 63 aggregate critic score.

4. Second Sight

• Developer: Free Radical Design
• Release: September 21, 2004

Second sight seems like another game I must have heard about in Nintendo Power, or Game Informer, or some similar gaming magazine. I remember thinking the premise sounded very interesting and mature, an amnesiac man with psychic powers breaking free from a medical facility. The psychic powers sounded like they’d be very fun to play around with too!

The game isn’t a GameCube exclusive, it came out on the 3 major consoles at the time by releasing on PS2 and Xbox as well. What I didn’t know, until reading up a bit on it for this article, is that it also had a PC release. However, despite the number of platforms it’s available on, I missed out on it entirely. Hopefully I’ll remedy that someday and get my fix of psychic-power-infused stealth action! I mean, who doesn’t want psychic powers, right? …It’s not just me, right?

3. Viewtiful Joe

• Developer: Capcom
• Release: October 7, 2003

Edit: Viewtiful Joe was a challenge, but an enjoyable one! I’m really glad I finally gave the full game a shot. You can read more about my thoughts on it here.

This side-scrolling beat ‘em up released in 2003 to critical acclaim, and was commercially successful enough to spawn a few sequels and even manga and anime adaptations. The Demo/Preview disc that came with my GameCube had a Viewtiful Joe demo on it, and as a kid it always struck me as a strange game. I mean, you’re this ordinary dude, but then you collect some things and strike a weird pose, call out a catchphrase, and transform into a superhero. Now that I’m a bit older I think I can appreciate the intent and the humor there, but as a kid I just thought it was weird. Fun though!

I always thought it was cool how it was like you were in a movie, with the director yelling “Cut, cut, cut!” when you lose all your health and have to restart. That happened to me a lot in the demo. I was not good at this game! Maybe when I start playing the full version of the game, I can redeem myself!

2. Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean

• Developer: Monolith Soft & tri-Crescendo
• Release: November 16, 2004

Card-based battles. There’s a system you don’t see every day. That’s exactly what Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean brings to the table. I’ve played games that employ card-themed systems before, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories comes to mind, though I’m not sure how similar the systems actually are. Given the card-based battles, I’m sure deck-building plays a large role. Having too many cards, or too few, could mean disaster if you can’t draw the cards you need when you need them, giving it the potential for quite a bit of strategy.

I’ve actually briefly played Baten Kaitos before a few years ago, I wanted to see what the card mechanics were like. What I played, I enjoyed, and I’m looking forward to picking up this game for real sometime!

1. Skies of Arcadia Legends

• Developer: Overworks & Point of View Software
• Release: January 27, 2003

I know Skies of Arcadia was originally a Sega Dreamcast game, released in 2000. Skies of Arcadia Legends is mostly a straight-up port to the GameCube, with a few changes and tweaks here and there. Legends released in 2003, but for one reason or another, I never knew it existed back in my GameCube playing days. Maybe it wasn’t marketed very well.

In any case, it has pretty great review scores from critics and fans alike, though the Metacritic score for the Dreamcast version (93 at time of writing) is much more impressive than the score for the GameCube version (84 at time of writing). The premise sounds great, the setting is full of continents floating in the sky and airships, while the gameplay promises to deliver classic turn-based battles and city, dungeon, and world map exploration. The story is said to be excellent, and the game overall is filled with character. Basically everything I could ask for in a JRPG!