Good 3rd Party Gamecube Games

[Deleted]

Same as the last thread but for Gamecube this time. I'm looking to get a comparison between the quality 3rd party support between different Nintendo home systems. I am looking for good games that are neither developed nor published by Nintendo. Please let me know which games you like.

List of games mentioned so far:
Baten Kaitos
Beyond Good & Evil
Billy Hatcher & The Giant Egg
Bomberman Generations
Bomberman Jetters
Call of Duty 2
Capcom vs SNK 2
Darkened Skye
Def Jam Vendetta
Def Jam: Fight for NY
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
Freedom Fighters
Gotcha Force
Hitman 2
Ikaruga
I-Ninja
Increduble Hulk: Ultimate Destruction
Killer 7
Lego Star Wars
Lego Star Wars 2
Lord of the Rings The Third Age
Mega Man Anniversary Collection
Mega Man X Collection
Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes
Mr Driller Drill Land
Phantasy Star Online I&II
P.N.03
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
Prince of Persia: Two Thrones
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
Resident Evil 0
Resident Evil (Remake)
Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil 3
Resident Evil 4
Resident Evil Code Veronica
Ribbit King
Rocky
Second Sight
Simpsons Hit & Run
Skies of Arcadia Legends
Sonic Adventure
Sonic Adventure 2 Battle
Sonic Gems Collection
Sonic Heroes
Sonic Mega Collection
Sonic Riders
Soul Calibur II
Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy
Spider-Man 2
Star Wars Rogue Squadron 2
Star Wars Rogue Squadron 3
Super Bust a Move Allstars
Super Monkey Ball
Super Monkey Ball 2
Tales of Symphonia
Timesplitters 2
Timesplitters Future Perfect
Tony Hawks Pro Skater (Series)
Ultimate Muscle Legends
Viewtiful Joe
Viewtiful Joe 2
XIII

[Apollo Chungus]

On the whole, I remember the Gamecube having much better 3rd party support compared to the N64, in that you got plenty of games that were available on other platforms of the day and a bunch of exclusives/ports from the likes of SEGA and Capcom.

Resident Evil is fairly infamous in this regard. You not only got ports of Resident Evil 2 and 3: Nemesis (along with Code Veronica, which I can't really speak for quality-wise cuz its reputation is odd), but you got the legendary Resident Evil Remake and Resident Evil 4 (and Zero, which I know very little about).

Capcom made a big deal back in the day about the 'Capcom Five' - five new games that would be exclusively made for the GC. It didn't really work out as planned, with one game getting cancelled and three of them getting ported to the PS2 not too long after (including Resident Evil 4). But two of the said ported games were Hideki Kamiya's side-scrolling hit Viewtiful Joe (which also got a sequel) and the first big name game by Suda51 Killer7.

I've never gotten round to playing either version, but I've generally heard very good things about Skies of Arcadia: Legends, which ports the Dreamcast classic with some good changes (less frequent random encounters and faster loading) and some bad changes (badly ported music and some graphical clipping).

Ikaruga is one of those famous shmup classics that even dummies like me have heard of, and although it's not my thing, I'd assume the quality carries through to this port.

Beyond Good & Evil is one of those famous "underrated cult classics that everyone's actually heard of", and for a good reason. It's a great game with a unique vibe in its presentation, and I love the sense of progression it has when it comes to upgrading and refining your hovercraft.

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time/Warrior Within/The Two Thrones are a trio of quite good cinematic platformers that each offer something that makes them unique from each other, whether that's teaming up with Farah in SOT, travelling back and forth through time in WW, or the various new mechanics in TT. That said, the latter two games are noticeably more buggier (and this is the case on all the platforms, presumably due to the developers having to put these out yearly and not having the time to optimize things).

The Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series generally played much like their PS2/Xbox counterparts, though they lacked the online seen in the PS2 games, and are very much worth checking out. (The games released for the GC were Pro Skater 3/4, Underground 1/2 and American Wasteland)

Spider-Man 2, aka the best Spidey game and one of the best open world games for its superb swinging mechanics, idiosyncratic weirdness (what other game has Bruce Campbell alternatively providing deadpan advice or doing silly nonsense for the hint tokens?), and being able to just mess around the world to your heart's content.

The Simpsons: Hit & Run is one of three actually good Simpsons games*, and a generally solid driving game with lots of mucking about, secret areas and a surprisingly good soundtrack.

I stink at them, but TimeSplitters 2 and TimeSplitters: Future Perfect are a cool duology of shooters inspired by GoldenEye/Perfect Dark (2 is much more inspired by those games in the level design and objectives you can accomplish, while FP is more linear).

Darkened Skye is a weird but interesting third-person action game set in a fantasy world inspired by the 90s Skittles commercials. Yes, it's a licensed game based on Skittles of all things, but the dev team went off and created a pretty big game with a cool protagonist voiced by Linda Larkin (Jasmine from Disney's Aladdin) and a whole bunch of comedic bits.

I-Ninja is a pretty neat 3D platformer by Argonaut that does some really cool things with momentum and grappling hooks, though its gibbering main character gets quite annoying after a while.

This is the last one since I've been writing for nearly an hour, but I've heard great things about SoulCalibur II. Famously, this is the port that let you fight as Link from the Zelda games.

*For anyone asking, the other two are the Konami arcade game and the insane GBA version of Road Rage.

[spanky]

Overall, the Gamecube did have much better 3rd party support than the N64...but I somehow like it less I think? Maybe. Resident Evil 4 pretty much justifies the existence of the system to me.

Eternal Darkness is a cool Resident Evil-type game with a focus on Lovecraftian horror stuff. It's the one with the "sanity meter" where your character starts to hallucinate and other weird things happen if it gets too low.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is great if you can get 4 people and 4 GBAs and 4 link cables together to play it properly. Even then, I think Four Swords is a far superior game using the GBA connectivity. It might be the most raw fun I have ever had playing a video game. Four Swords isn't really 3rd party though...

[🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀]

There's a couple of notable Sega titles not mentioned yet. Monkey Ball 1 and 2 are among the biggest 3rd parties for the system, and Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 were a pretty big deal. Phantasy Star Online got some attention on the platform too.

Baten Kaitos is notable I think, even if it's mostly because Nintendo ended up with Monolith Soft.

Bomberman Generation has a pretty interesting singleplayer and probably my favorite multiplayer out of any Bomberman game.

Outside of that, I'd argue that most multiplatform titles are best on GCN because it had the best controller of that generation.

[windfisch]

Beyond Good and Evil - Really solid 3D Zelda-like: While it never quite reaches the best moments of Wind Waker, it also avoids that game's awful padding. In terms of story and style it reminds me of a post-Batman TAS cartoon adventure-series with a distinct Franco-Belgian feel (Bob Morane comes to mind for some reason, even though I didn't really watch that show). It's got personality and the pig-sidekick is especially charming!

Metal Gear Solid The Twin Snakes - Performance issues aside, it's pretty great, especially the ridiculous cutscenes (at the very least: do watch those!).

P.N. 03 - Galaga's dancing cover-shooter cousin. For a supposedly half-finished game it's actually really good, though it does take some getting used to. The only downside for me are the special-attack-inputs via the tiny D-Pad, which can feel rather unreliable.

Viewtiful Joe 1+2 - Taking brawler-platformers like the Game Boy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-titles to the next level. Really tough and technical, though.

Resident Evil 4 - ...

Dead Phoenix - If only...

[dsparil]

GameCube definitely had better third party support since it had similar power to others that generation. On the other hand, it feels like there were fewer third party exclusives and multi-platform games with a strong association to the platform. I almost want to go so far as to say that applies to all three consoles, but I get the feeling that many people think of multi-platform games as PS2 games by default since the system outsold everything else by such a wide margin. Apart from a few PC ports, I played most multiplatform games on PS2 since they were so much more plentiful used than GC games. I do agree that they'd be better on the GC since the controller is so good.

Rogue Squadron II and III - Rogue Leader is amazing in general and it was a remarkable achievement to finish it in 9 months. Rebel Strike had two years and doesn't fair as well mainly from the half baked on foot sections. Rest is solid though.

Tales of Symphonia - I barely remember it at this point, but it was nice to see the series return to a Nintendo platform since it started there. It's also the last time I put in a considerable amount of time into any of the Tales games.

—

May 26, 2021 6:38:04 GMT -5 spanky said:

Eternal Darkness is a cool Resident Evil-type game with a focus on Lovecraftian horror stuff. It's the one with the "sanity meter" where your character starts to hallucinate and other weird things happen if it gets too low.

Eternal Darkness is actually a Nintendo published game and they picked it up around 1999 or 2000 so a number of years before it was eventually released. I think Nintendo was hoping to get more out of the partnership than they did in the end.

[spanky]

You all actually like the Gamecube controller? I hate the mushy shoulder buttons, the tiny D-pad and the general layout. I think they are generally pretty poor quality too... I had 4 of them and 3 of them developed jacked up and broken buttons pretty quickly. Granted I'm not much of a Smash fan either...

Oh, Def Jam Vendetta and Def Jam Fight For NY are pretty great. The first one is more of a straight up AKI wrestling game is rappers. The second one modifies the engine and makes it more like pit fighting and has a surprisingly deep character customizer and story mode. I get a big kick out of making my guy look as goofy as possible with poorly matched streetwear...

[ommadawnyawn2]

Three Gs:
Beyond Good & Evil
Super Monkey Ball
Spider-Man 2 (or The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction if you've played it already)

[dsparil]

The d-pad is a little iffy in design, but it's my favorite controller of all time. I like the analog shoulder buttons although they could have gotten more use. Mine is still fine and it was a used one that went through who knows what.I'm not as fond of the Wavebird since it lacks rumble.

[🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀]

I'm also still mostly using my original GCN controller from 2004. That controller saw more use than all other controllers I have combined. The rubber thingy has come off the left stick, but other than that it works as new.

May 26, 2021 11:32:08 GMT -5 dsparil said:

GameCube definitely had better third party support since it had similar power to others that generation. On the other hand, it feels like there were fewer third party exclusives and multi-platform games with a strong association to the platform. I almost want to go so far as to say that applies to all three consoles, but I get the feeling that many people think of multi-platform games as PS2 games by default since the system outsold everything else by such a wide margin.

For most (multiplatform) games that era (and probably a lot of PS2 titles too) I couldn't tell you exactly which of the three platforms it was released on. That generation was just too damn similar.

May 26, 2021 11:40:01 GMT -5 spanky said:

You all actually like the Gamecube controller?

You're on thin ice with me buddy.

[ZenithianHero]

Super Monkey Ball 1/2
various Sonic games (Save for maybe Shadow, I find them solid games. Often the Dreamcast versions of the Adventure games are considered definitive among official versions though).
Billy Hatcher
Bomberman Generations and Jetters
Killer 7
Tales of Symphonia
Baten Kaitos 1 and Origins (Origins is published by Nintendo, but they don't own the series)

[Deleted]

I'm another lover of the Gamecube controller I'm afraid. It has a few issues but I just love how comfortably it sits in my hands. I really like the large, rounded L & R and the big 'A' button just works so well. The analogue I found much easier to control than the PS2's loose design also.

As for the games - thanks for all the contributions so far. I did have it in my head that Cube has better support than the 64, but honestly I don't know the latter platform library well at all.

A few comments on some games mentioned -

Spiderman 2 was great, but what happened with the follow up (Ultimate Spider-Man)? After getting universal praise for the exploration and swinging they completely changed it with the next entry. Admittedly I only played for a few minutes and it's been on my shelf ever since, after finding out it wasn't the follow up I was looking for.

Skies of Arcadia is a game I've put quite a bit of time into, but kept hitting a wall. The random encounters are still ridiculously frequent, to the point I found it too difficult to get my bearings in the overworld. I can't imagine how many there were in the original version. It is a very nice game when I know where I'm going though.

ZenithianHero - I'd seen Namco own Baten Kaitos Origins, but I'll skip it on this thread for consistency's sake.

spanky - I never got into the rap theme with Def Jam. I remember my brother played those a tonne though. There is another AKI wrestling game on the platform - Kinnikuman II/Ultimate Muscle Legends. I've been playing it lately and it is a pretty fun, arcade interpretation of their engine.


A couple more additions of some puzzle games I was pretty addicted to:
Mr Driller Drill Land - This was Japan exclusive but language barrier isn't a huge deal. All games in this series are good in my opinion. It was also recently ported to Switch.

Super Bust a Move Allstars - Another series where more or less every entry is good.

[Apollo Chungus]

Got a few more to add!

Call of Duty 2: Big Red One - Back when Call of Duty was being developed exclusively for PC, a pair of console spin-offs were made with original campaigns that did their own thing. I haven't played much of Finest Hour in a very long time, but I remember its sequel Big Red One being particularly good.

Freedom Fighters - A fairly neat third-person shooter with levels sporting a good few optional objectives. One of two 2000s shooters based on a foreign country invading America and you playing as a construction worker who ends up leading the resistance (the other being Turning Point: Fall of Liberty), it also has an amazing soundtrack by Jesper Kyd.

Hitman 2: Silent Assassin - I'm not a Hitman fan, but I've often heard this being considered the best of the classic games.

Lego Star Wars I and II - Fairly basic but enjoyable action platformers that retell the first six Star Wars movies with LEGO. Full of silly silent pantomimes, which I've always felt were way funnier than the LEGO games sporting dialogue or reusing audio from the films.

Lord of the Rings: The Third Age - A turn-based JRPG with random OCs mucking about in the background of famous Peter Jackson films. However, it's quite good, and one of the few games to sport the conditional turn-based system where you can see the order of attacks and change it through your actions (as seen in Final Fantasy X, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey)

Ribbit King - Cute golfing game with frogs and cartoony graphics. I haven't played this one, but it looks quite good.

Second Sight - Action/stealth game by the TimeSplitters studio where you use psychic powers to solve puzzles and defeat enemies. I haven't played this one, but I like the concept and it reviewed fairly well.

Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy - Pretty cool action-adventure game where you alternate between an agile lion boy and an undead mummy. Gets massive personal props for being a game entirely themed around Ancient Egypt.

XIII - FPS based on the Belgian comic book. Got some renown back in the day for its cel-shaded visuals and using comic book panels to emphasize enemy reactions or off-screen developments.

[Deleted]

Some more came to mind from Capcom:
Capcom vs SNK 2
Gotcha Force
Mega Man Anniversary Collection
Mega Man X Collection

[spanky]

Oh here's another one. The Rocky game. I don't know if it's necessarily a great game but me and my friends played it to death in college, lol. There's a sequel too but I've never played it.