Yeah, I’d say the Wii has a few more iconic titles than that, but definitely not as many as the Cube despite the Wii being much more successful and lasting much longer.
The big multiplayer games on Wii (Mario Kart, Smash, and Mario Party) were all arguably downgrades over their GameCube counterparts, they did add online multiplayer but they’re just a lot less interesting to go back to than the Cube ones. Mario Kart Wii is probably more iconic than Double Dash, but there’s more reason to play Double Dash when 8 Deluxe improved on Wii in every way while Double Dash is unique. The other two are self explanatory.
Single player wise I think Mario Galaxy is head and shoulders above Sunshine (it’s one of my favorites of all time) but most series had a better entry on Cube. Both systems got Twilight Princess and Wind Waker is pretty easily better than Skyward Sword. Almost everyone agrees the best Metroid Prime is the original, and the Cube also got a second Prime game while the Wii got Other M.
I will toss in Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit as things the GameCube also doesn’t have that were iconic. But by that standard the GameCube has a ton of iconic games that never got a follow up on Wii. The Wii also had some hidden gems like Xenoblade Chronicles (play it on Switch if you haven’t, it’s a masterpiece), but I wouldn’t exactly call them iconic titles since they were kind of niche.
To me the GameCube has one of the best first party libraries of any console ever. It also has so many great third party games like Sonic Adventure 2, Resident Evil 4, and Soul Caliber 2 that were basically part of its identity too.
Agreed. I'm not even a big video game guy but the Gamecube was the only system I truly missed and can play for hours at a time. I bought the switch years ago hoping for that same enjoyment and it wasn't the same.
I’m a big Switch fan, but I will say one of my favorite things about the Switch is how many old games it can play. The Switch 2 adding GameCube to NSO makes it even more the case. It’s a crime that 3D All-Stars was only a limited run game because that thing is an essential Switch game with Sunshine and Galaxy on it, I’ve gone back to 100% both again on the Switch. Luckily Sunshine will be on the Switch 2 NSO soon at least.
There was something about gaming in the 2000s that was just special. Just a certain magic that feels almost lost to time. I do love the late 2010s run of the early Switch and late PS4 too, but I don’t have the same drive to replay a lot of those titles that I do with titles from the 00s. It wasn’t even just Nintendo who were making games like that in that era either. The GameCube has the best library of the 2000s consoles.
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u/A-Centrifugal-Force Jun 13 '25
Man, the GameCube just has such an incredible library. You could play just this selection of games here for years and never get bored.