A large part as to why they still feel good is we still have cartoony games like Mario and Fortnite. The difference between them isn't huge. And Resident Evil is still a masterpiece.
The Gamecube custom PowerPC 3 was improved and they added around 50 new SIMD instructions. The memory of the Gamecube may have been lower than the Xbox but was supirior 1T-SRAM with lots of lower latency than the regular DDR RAM that Xbox 1 was using, not to mention that Nintendo also added 3MB of embedded 1T-SRAM as cache, 1MB for texture cache and 2MC for FrameBuffer. Many try to say that Xbox GPU was superior than the Gamecube GPU due to not just for packing 23MHZ of clock speed instead of 163 MGhz, but also because the Xbox GPU had a programmable peipleline instead of Fixed-Function pipleline, but thats not correct since a programmable pipeline is much slower than fixed-function and its real adventage is about making the life easier for programmers and be more flexible, not for making the GPU more powerful.
I'm a race game specialist, GX is still by far the best racer I've ever played. I put thousands of hours in over 2 years perfecting GX, it's the single most I've played any video game.
The sixth generation was this perfect sweet spot in time, it was before the HD era where budgets became too large for studios to consistently take risks, but computationally advanced enough to allow for all the rad experimentation we saw. Pikmin is to me the prime example, just so unique and there's still nothing like it to this day.
This is a really good point. Games had smaller budgets and more focused scope so you consistently had tons of great games with variety and quick sequels every 2-3 years ...I'd happily take smaller games nowadays if they were made faster with more risks and variety.
The way I look at the generations of gaming is this: 1st and 2nd generation: the beginning 3rd: refinement of 2d graphics and gameplay 4th: perfection of 2d graphics and gameplay, beginning of 3d graphics 5th generation: refinement of 3d gameplay 6th generation: perfection of 3d gameplay 7th generation on: iteration on everything before
Best generation there will likely ever be. Sega Dreamcast leading the way with innovation. Nintendo working at their absolute peak and trusting companies like Sega and Capcom to maximise their hardware. Microsoft launching a stylistic (I miss that, modern Xboxes all lack style) powerhouse with some strong internet heft. Playstation 2 for basic pop stuff (the Wii of its era, for kids). Every audience was catered to, lots of innovation and creativity. All lost to the miasma of buyouts and mergers.
Honestly I will blame the average consumer not the developers so much. As consoles became more powerful the average gamer demanded more realism and not quality gameplay and story. This led to many games looking incredible with bad game play mechanics and bad story or an extremely long development as seen with Rockstar’s releases. Nintendo on the other hand decided did not to listen to the average gamer and developed games same as they always did. Some have longer development than others but they put great focus on solid mechanics and fun story and are not too concerned with looking realistic and will embrace a more stylized look.
I think 360/ PS3 was the sweet spot. Online gaming for the first time working well and easily accessible, enough power for bigger 3D levels and worlds (Oblivion for example), the controllers had all the necessary buttons, and most 3D games finally had the now standard correct way of twinstick controls figured out. There were also many awesome new franchises with multiple entries. Of course this was also the generation that introduced day-one-patches, updates, and expensive dlc's, but those things only became unbearable with the generation after.
Exactly what I said it’s not nostalgia either they were plain fun sure the graphics suck but we should go back to that time we don’t need realistic games
Super Smash Bros Melee is literally one of the deepest and most responsive video games ever created. It's smooth and extremely precise gameplay make it a popular e-sport even today, some 23 years after it's initial release.
I saw a video with a guy speculating how an entire generation of programmers has come up that aren't really game programmers, not like they were back in the day. Before programming was in schools most of the game devs had to be self taught and learn from scratch and they all built their chops on arcade games which always had to have tight addictive gameplay to keep people playing. Today almost all gameplay is third person action with the exact same controls and cameras, it's lazy and not interesting. Something like RE4 remake, which everyone loves but I personally think is a massive step down. The gameplay is so less tight and responsive it is night and day compared to the OG. Developers today just don't have the same skills when it comes to making great mechanics.
Counterpoint: there was a time when platformers absolutely dominated gaming and a lot of those were rubbish too. There’s still plenty of innovation but admittedly, the GC era was kinda magic.
How could you forget about mentioning the Resident Evil remake and Resident Evil Zero? Those games looked almost photo realistic for my teenage eyes back then!
I agree. The Resident Evil remake in my opinion had the most incredible detail / visuals on the entire system and it is still stunning to look at today.
Prerendered backgrounds make that easy, so its not the best example. RE4 was a great example because the Ps2version looked so much worse in comparison.
@@Mojo_Dojo333 Using prerendered backgrounds doesn't make those games look any less impressive. They still had to have highly detailed 3D objects to blend in with the background. Plus the backgrounds wherent just static, they they had dynamic elements. If it was that easy the game wouldn't have stayed a gamecube exclusive for the rest of the generarion.
Mgs twin snakes is the best mgs. Imo. Its perfect. Legendary game. Skies of arcadia is legit. Metal arms and battalion wars: legit. Even red faction 2 is on the gamecube. Peak red faction. Hitman 2: peak hitman. It has loads of great games.
@@SoyAntonioGaming That doesn't count! I'm talking from ONE generation to the next. Else we could say the leap from NES to the Switch. Which is very silly to even compare. You're not silly, are you?
During the sixth gen’s heyday, I had a college roommate that believed the GameCube was the graphically weakest console. Then I showed him Resident Evil 4…
@@kimbo2427 mind-blowing visuals for the time, and the game was such a shift from what RE and action games in general had been for years prior. there's a reason it's considered one of the greatest games of all time. what an amazing era to be a gamer!
GameCube had a lot of great looking bangers for sure. But idk ffx was visually extremely good too on ps2. Also, ps2 had ffxi which also looked great. Shining force neo on GameCube was sick, both systems had great looking games.
@@CR-un7wl very true, but that’s not the point I’m making. Because of Nintendo’s reputation as being for all audiences, its perception was as a “kiddy” company and its games and console were weaker graphically than the competition. My college roommate had this perception. He argued the usual suspects on PS2 and Xbox at the time as examples of games with great graphics (which they were) that GameCube couldn’t match. I changed his mind with RE4.
@@earlyriser03 yeah to your point, lots of people considered realism a measure of graphical strength at the time. Had more to do with the games than the hardware.
@@kimbo2427 ikr I think if given the chance on switch and it being the only M rated Nintendo has ever produced. It would have gotten a lot of new fans today.
6:16 I was surprised years later to hear people who only played on the PS2 state confidently that (they thought) Sony's console was the most powerful one for the generation, when both the GameCube and the Xbox were both _very obviously_ superior in most respects. (The PS2 did beat the GCN when it came to storage space and widescreen support.) But then I was also surprised to find out that some hardware experts consider the GameCube to be more powerful than the Xbox. The difference here being that there are actual facts behind those statements, and it's tied to the console's unusual feature set. When the Metroid Prime remaster was released, a Retro developer talked about how the GCN allowed for impressive lighting effects practically "for free" which couldn't be replicated on the Switch without a significant hit to the framerate, so they were left out. The GCN version of Phantasy Star Online also ended up being the prettiest one, as the hardware was capable of generating effects the Xbox wasn't.
Thanks for sharing, yeah I saw those developer interviews and it's really interesting. GameCube really was in the same arena as the Xbox technologically, it's interesting to see how specific hardware capabilities translated to the games
ps2 had a very interesting design, and could really push some effects that the gc and xbox would have a problem with, also in the right hands it could really push a lot of polygons (look at the ratchet and clank, jack and dexter).
I love the GameCube, but let's face it the Xbox was the most powerful of the bunch by far. It can push resolution up to 720p /1080i. Most of the multi port games look and run better on the Xbox. It has some advanced lighting and reflects technologies. Even if the GameCube had some impressive looking games, and had some of its specs technically better than the Xbox it is significantly less powerful. Xbox had a foot in the 7th gen.
I still have a PS2 and GameCube and yes, I think GC had the edge overall but I still prefer the PS2, mainly because it seemed the more grown up than the GC and that was also true of the games, which seemed a bit childish and cutsie . The only game I had on both PS2 and GC was the second smugglers run game. I think the GC version looked slightly better but weirdly didn’t play as well as the PS2 version. In respect of GC vs Xbox 1 well it’s very clear the Xbox was by far the more powerful but again, I’d rather the PS2 over the Xbox and again, it’s purely down to the exclusives.
Rare's one and only game on the Gamecube too. It's so weird to me seeing the Rareware logo on the Starfox Adventures case and thinking about what could have been had Rare stayed with Nintendo.
@@Nutty151 Rare became very slow at making games, and is why Nintendo sold them. The list of Rare game isn't long the last 25 years. Kinect Adventures, Kameo, Perfect Dark, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Conker Reloaded and Sea of Thieves.
@@V3ntilator I thought all those problems came AFTER the sale of the company? I know Starfox Adventures was originally a Rare rpg with unique characters. It was turned into a Starfox game at the behest of Nintendo. Just before Rare was sold to Microsoft the company had some games planned for Gamecube, like Perfect Dark Zero, Donkey Kong Racing, Conker's Other Bad Day, Banjo-Threeie, and more.
4th gen - beautiful graphics 5th gen - dog piss graphics 6th gen - gorgeous graphics 7th gen - realistic graphics 8th gen - realistic graphics in higher resolution 9th gen - BUGS BUGS BUGS UNFINISHED ALPHA MICROTRANSACTIONS
5th gen has actually some of the most beautiful 2D games ever made. Even the PS2 2D games didn't look as good as PS1, because, for example, some of the Neo-Geo ports had filters which messed up the pixel art. Besides, the PS2 focused almost exclusively on 3D. The PS1, on the other hand, had many gorgeous 2D games, like Lomax or Legend of Mana. As for the Saturn, it was THE ultimate 2D powerhouse of the 90s, even more than the Neo-Geo. It might be the console with the most Neo-Geo and arcade ports ever made. Dodonpachi, the Real Bout Fatal Fury games, Night Warriors... If we're talking 3D though, definitely, it's the generation which aged the worst.
To put into perspective how amazing Rogue Squadron 2 is, my dad is 75 and he will bring that game up and reminisce on how cool it was, but he could never beat the first mission.
Not just graphics. Each entry in mainline series was super in depth with so much content, the best performance and controls, you name it. Since then the mobile trend started and bled into the consoles too - releasing unfinished buggy games with drip fed patches and DLC over years, which still did not amount to the fun factor, amount of content, replayability of the GameCube titles. But let's never re-release them anywhere. -Nintendo
We need a GameCube classic or GameCube virtual console so bad. Even though some GameCube games have come to switch in various forms, we need the full original library
I’ve played most Mario Kart games, and I still hold Double Dash as the best one of all. The feel, the maps, having two characters on board, the music, everything is just perfection.
Yes, 60fps. That was the standard on Gamecube and Dreamcast. Then Gen 7 & 8 came along and framerate was dropped for resolution. Gen 6 is my favourite console era.
Even at the time I strongly felt consoles went HD too early. Just about the time we started to be able to "fill out" a 640x480 image detail-wise and with a good framerate, it was all thrown away for choppy HD with blurry textures.
It's hopeful now that its port has been delayed. It's likely due to Prime Remastered being so succesful that they're now giving Echoes the full remaster treatment.
boomer moment here: I remember downloading (very slowly) and then watching the trailer for smash bros melee in 240p on my older brothers computer before the game came out. And we sat there blown away by the insane level of detail. We watched that trailer back to back at least 50 times. What a time to be alive in the year ~2001. P.s: Shoutout to wave race bluestorm. That was also a launch title for the GC and showed off some very impressive water for the time.
I did the exact same thing for the melee trailer, I still remember it. I hadn't seen anything like it at the time, I kept replaying it after downloading it because I almost didn't believe it
Other consoles were not able to compete water effects seen on Wave Race: Blue Storm and Starfox Adventures, -that was also first game ever to have fur all over on characters instead of skin. Character models on Super Smash Bros Melee were jaw dropping as well, i remember constantly pausing the game just to move camera around the characters & admire. I think the best enviromental lighting effects were on Eternal Darkness, when played on CRT or Plasma -TV. Early LCDs simply could not do justice of incredible enviroments. Most realistic looking NGC-game is Roque Squadron 3: Rebel Strike. On some missions, folks who watched me playing literally believed i was watching Star Wars movies on DVD!
Good points here - GameCube games looked so good on a high quality CRT screen - they had a smooth richness that's difficult to perfectly recapture on modern LED/OLED screens.
@@intellectic9155 NGC had better exclusives, though. None of the games on PS2/XBOX are better than something like Metroid Prime, Eternall Darkness, Super Smash Bross Melee or The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess. And i'm not talking about graphics only. Best exclusive game on PS2 is Eye Toy: Play. Best XBOX exclusive is OutRun 2. I should know, i had all the best games on all those consoles.
The GameCube controller is still my all-time favorite. Having large hands cramping can be an issue, but I never had this problem with the GameCube controller. Perfect size and button layout.
The GameCube controller is definitely a top favorite, I really like the positioning of the four face buttons. The only issue I have is the C-Stick being semi difficult to use for dual analog games, though it also feels better with other types of games.
I still remember the first time getting the Gamecube controller in my hands, it was so much better than the Playstation controller it's still mindblowing to me.
Seeing rouge leader at a kiosk in 2001 ish blew me away and I was sold. I had to have one. I’m still obsssed now with that game, I would die for a remaster. It’s incredible.
This is so true, the gamecube lineup is crazy for only a five year life cycle with a small user base, it has one of the highest quality libraries of any console
Xbox came out a few months later, and it had built in online functionality, and voice chat for games like COD, and Halo. I love the gamecube, but it didnt stand a chance.
Gamecube is to n64 as snes is to nes, it's "Nintendo polish." I wish people remembered it like that and not just as the joke people made it into at the time. I didn't even know it's processing was more powerful than ps2, or that's it had re4 first. It's my favorite for sure, i feel like Nintendo may have peaked with GameCube honestly.
Yeah, I feel like the GameCube just received so much undeserved ridicule for so long that it altered perceptions. It's actually just a fairly "normal" awesome console beneath the purple shell
Nintendo peaked with GameCube and it's been all downhill ever since. If Nintendo leadership would pull their heads out of their asses, they would return back to the basic, tried-and-true formula of a normal non-gimmick controller, a console with solid hardware specs, and cultivating new franchises that normal non-weeb adults can enjoy. It is frustrating as a consumer that Nintendo has tailored their products towards a demographic of infantile children and otakus.
@@eclipse_434 It's easy to see why they made those decisions, though. I'm sure they have comtemplated the approach that you (and many others) are suggesting --- and come to the conclusion that it is not viable.
@@todesziege You're making excuses and coping hard. Sony and Microsoft have demonstrably proven with Xbox and Playstation that there is a healthy audience and demographic who enjoy playing regular ass games on a regular ass console with no stupid gimmicks. Also, people who play Xbox and Playstation have a diverse array of interests in more childlike baby games (like Spyro, Ratchet & Clank, Crash Bandicoot, etc) as well as more mature titles for a developed adult audience (Halo, God of War, Uncharted, Doom, etc.). Nintendo relies on stupid technological gimmicks and shameless Otaku pandering due to the tasteless, servile, childlike interests of Nintendo's consumers.
@@eclipse_434 Sony and Microsoft are (Sony more so back in the day) non-gaming megacorporations with nearly endless money supply that can afford to outspend any regular game company. You can't beat them head-on.
I remember it like it was yesterday. They had a gaming station with several GameCubes in a local store. You had to take the escalator one floor down and right after it there was it. 4 GameCubes, each one with a different game. My go to? Rogue Squadron 2. I was blown away by how amazing it looked, the difference in graphics coming from N64 was day and night. I played the Death Star mission over and over trying to get a gold medal. Played it a 20ish years later again and it still looked sooo unbelievably good. Maybe I wiull get that Wii with GameCube support some day...
No. Nintendo didn't change it because they didn't care. They didn't even have the most powerful console as that was the Xbox. Also the Wii was much closer in power to a PS2 than a PS3/360
So many games ran at a solid 60fps, and a lot of them also had extremely short load times. Kirby Air Ride strikes me in particular-you choose a race and you are in it immediately.
Gamecube was the last of that generation that I bought. First PS2, then Xbox, then GC. But that little thing became my favorite place to play most multiplats. The PS2 had a few exclusives that made me keep it around, and for any game that had online functionality, the XBox was the place to go, but for everything else, I really enjoyed the GC. I remember playing Prince of Persia sands of time, and NFL Street for months on end with my friend. Grew up with the NES, but I still say that this generation was my favorite. All were distinct, all had their ups/downs, gaming was growing, studios put out mostly quality games at the time. Just a great generation.
This was my favorite generation too. I liked my PS2 but the GameCube was what I always kept coming back to the most. Had a friend with an Xbox and it was cool but there weren't enough games I was interested in to convince me to buy one when cash was short at the time
Thanks for this great retrospective on the GameCube. It was _the_ console for me when I was a kid, and so many early memories of gaming are tied to it. Awesome video.
Thanks so much for sharing, I also have so many great memories with this console, playing smash bros with friends endlessly and so many good single player adventures.
Why aren't Resident Evil 1 Remake and Resident Evil Zero on this list? They are the best ones for me and look even better than the more recent remastered versions.
Probably because they used pre-rendered backgrounds. They didn't have fully rendered 3D environments. I do agree that they're both probably the best looking games on the Gamecube, but that's due to how effective pre-rendered backgrounds can be.
This comment will probably get buried but fun story In 2017 shortly after the Switch came out I was replaying Thousand Year Door on my GameCube. I had a friend who was a notorious Nintendo hater, but he got swept up in BotW hype and got a Switch. We'd debate all the time on realistic vs stylized graphics, me defending the latter, and there was just no convincing him that stylized aged way better and were generally preferable. Anyways, I had him and a few friends over to hang out and all play our Switches and just goof around. I had already finished BotW to my heart's content so I busted out my GameCube and started playing TTYD. My back was to said friend and he couldn't see what controller I was holding. He was GAWKING at how smooth the game looked and was stunned. He asked he what the name of the game was because he didn't remember seeing that on the Switch release line-up and wanted to download it ASAP. I, very smugly, turned to him and said "Thank you for proving my point, this is a GameCube game with stylized graphics that you are gawking over". He never debated with me again. Also, one GORGEOUS GameCube game I think doesn't get mentioned that much was the Resident Evil 1 Remake. That game is still STUNNING
This is a great story, thanks for sharing! Thousand year door still runs super smooth and looks great. I actually generally prefer stylized graphics, or realistic graphics with a stylized flavor mixed in. Makes the game more unique and timeless.
60fps is more common than ever on the consoles. Great art styles still are around. Not every game looks realistic and if you do think that you aren't paying attention to the gaming industry
@crestofhonor2349 in today's gaming world there shouldn't be an option for a performance mode. Games need to default 60fps. Yeah I should pay more attention when my switch games are mostly running at 30fps too.
@@michaelsuezo I disagree. Performance modes are perfectly fine. Whether you want 30, 40, or 60fps is entirely up to preferences. Also no games don't need to default to 60fps either. 60fps is better but it doesn't matter whether a game wants to be 30fps or 60fps.
@@crestofhonor2349 well the video just pointed out why these gamecube games stand out with having 60fps and great visual style so it does matter long term
@@michaelsuezo plenty of modern games have the exact same thing. All games have an art style anyways. But pretty much most games that release run at 60fps and plenty of games don’t use realism as their art style
The graphics on the GC were always easier for me to live with than PS2. The resolution difference was night and day and the fact that GC couldn't play DVDs was a non-issue for me. Never been much of a movie goer. I wanted a console for lovely looking games that played smoothly and I even liked the compact design of the console itself. Tbf though, I honestly don't think any of the consoles in that generation (GC/Xbox/PS2/Dreamcast) deserved to fail because they were all great and I've owned all four of them. It was a period of excellence.
Yeah I never liked how PS2 games looked. I'm not sure exactly _what_ it is, but the PS2 picture just always looked unappealing to me, compared not just to the GameCube or Xbox but also the Dreamcast.
Yeah Ps2s composite output is really bad, this is thankfully remedied playing PS2 games on a quality CRT with S-Video or component video. Cleans up it's picture substantially, but yes generally speaking the image quality was better on the other consoles
Never had an actual Gamecube even though my sister really wanted one but we ended up getting the Original Xbox to have with the PS2, the 6th generation was truly legendary. I would end up later around 2009-2010 playing all the Gamecube games on the Dolphin emulator and i realised that we really did miss another great console.
I remember being impressed with how fluid Blood Omen 2 felt on the GC vs the PS2. The GC Could have been an absolute bombastic success if they would have adopted standard DVD instead of mini-disc!
I remember being impressed every time you charged a shot and the lighting from the gun would reflect off of walls. In Phendrana drifts, It was absolutely stunning
The gamecube was the las of its kind, a xonsole that felt like a CONSOLE, no online bs, no multiplayer focus, pop the game on, sit down and play, xbox started the stupid trend of online games and tried SO hard to be a PC, and as someone that grew up with nintendo consoles and PCs, i hated what came after the gamecube, especially the xbox 360 and the ps3,
The most “wow” moment I recall about the GameCube launch was just seeing the demos at Best Buy playing Rogue Leader on huge TV’s. The visual fidelity was absolutely insane at the time, far beyond anything I’d seen elsewhere. I was a Nintendo kid, but I have to admit that the GameCube was the last system I was really a huge fan of. I avoided the Wii and Wii U. Switch is fine, but the GameCube was really magic to me.
Yeah I remember groups of people congregating around those demo kiosks and taking turns playing, people had never seen anything like it from a console at the time.
My take is that the Gamecube was their last attempt at competing with a graphical powerhouse. They still lost that generation, despite all those great games, as they did with the N64. So I wouldn't say they fell behind. They chose to be there and compete on their own terms with innovative controls and whatnot, horsepower aside. And except for the Wii U, they've been successful at it. Spec wise the Switch 2 won't blow anyone away, it's said to be about as powerful at the Steam deck. But it may well blow players away in other ways. It will be interesting to see.
While the X Box's emphasis on shaders may have been more forward looking, the GameCube was capable of doing so much more for that generation of systems by doing so many layers of cost efficient effects on top of effects on top of effects while maintaining smooth frame rates.
Xbox was fully capable of doing what the gamecube was doing, it just had a different set of games. This was shown with how multiplatform games were becoming far more popular and Xbox versions often looking and running the best
@@crestofhonor2349 Actually, no. The GameCube was set up a bit differently. I'm sure some of the effects could have been programmed in just as some GameCube games like Rogue Squadron 3 had shaders programmed in despite the system not having a built in function for it. The best looking exclusives for GameCube generally looked and ran a little better than the best X Box exclusives. The color palette of that graphics card the X Box used always looked a bit ugly too.
@@davidaitken8503 I don’t really agree. The Xbox had some truly stunning graphics on the system that just weren’t possible. Shadow maps and stencil shadows were far more common on Xbox than GameCube. The original far cry was another impressive game and same goes for games like Doom 3 and Conquer Live and Reloaded on Xbox. Rouge Squadron 3 was an attractive game at the time but there’s no reason it couldn’t run on the Xbox
I actually think the emphasis of art style over technical capabilities got kicked into overdrive on the Wii. Mad World, No More Heroes, Muramasa the Demon Blade and Wario Ware Shake it to name a few.
No it's games look way worse than game cube and even ps2. Ps2 was able to run a 1000 km map in Just Cause 1. I seen no more heroes, and it looks worse than 360 games like skate 3 because in the 360 period they used hidden artstyle and tech instead of just tech, so Wii was outmatched
@@PAINt0theMAX Say what you will about art style. That's subjective. In terms of power, the Wii was basically a Gamecube with an improved graphics processor, faster processor, and 4x the amount of RAM. When playing GameCube games, all it needed to do was slow down it's clock speed, and you get a perfect GC experience. The 360 is a substantially more powerful system than the Wii. Any 2 games that are using the same art style on both platforms will look better on the 360. Which is why so many Wii games were designed to be artistically distinct. And a lot of this can be hit or miss. No More Heroes is a fine example. It's easy to see how it could be considered butt-ugly. But comparing it to Skate 3 is really comparing Apples to Oranges. Skate 3 is more technically impressive. But artistically, it's a dime a dozen game. I've seen that look before, over and over again. It looks fine, but utterly forgettable. The Wii never got Just Cause. That's not because the platform couldn't handle it. It could have. Easily.
@@PAINt0theMAX You were claiming PS2 and Gamecube games looked better than Wii games. Which I'd strongly dispute. The games you mentioned all beat anything the Wii offers on a technical level. Apples to apples, the Wii loses consistently to 360/PS3. Compare the games you mentioned to Muramasa the Demon Blade, Wario Land Shake It, Mad World and Zelda Skyward Sword, we're now talking apples to oranges. And I'll take the fresh art direction over technical excellence in each of those cases. A lot of modern games take a cue from this artistic direction. You get a lot more games these days with a hand drawn approach or cel shading that was common on the Wii, but rare on the PS3 and 360. It's not entirely a technical limitation. It's valid artistic innovation.
I beat my first Resident Evil game on the GameCube. RE Zero looked so realistic to me back then. It seemed so life like. I beat the whole game using a physical game guide but still. The graphics seemed so next generation to me. Even kid games like Super Monkey Ball blew my mind. GameCube was fricken awesome!
@@crywolfplaysthe on foot missions are definitely fun but disappointing to see that they only run at 30fps, compared to the ps2 ratchet & clank games which run at 60. Still good stuff. I remember being disappointed that the graphics for the on foot missions weren't as good as Star Fox adventures at the time. The rail shooting levels run and look great though (60frames).
I bought a copy of Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike and I was blown away by how good it looked. I grew up on the OG battlefronts and they were graphcially fine for the time. But man this game that came out at the same time was super detailed. The ship models look incredible. The effects look great. Its an underrated series for sure. But in general every game on the GCN looks amazing. I really want to get component cable for it and hook it up to a good old box tv and see how clear everything looks
That's cool, they sell some great adapters online that convert the gamecube or Wii output to HDMI so you can hook it up to modern TVs, that's another option.
@@crywolfplaysI still have the official Nintendo component cables but the TV I had that hooked up to was a 60inch LG Plasma and it looked and played amazing on that TV for years. Now I have a 77 inch C1 OLED and don’t have a way to play it. I might invest in a retro Tink 4K or maybe get an hdmi converter instead. I just don’t know which one will get me a picture as good as the Nintendo component cables as that did a damn good job
Rogue Squadron III is really the best example of a Gamecube game blowing everything on Xbox and PS2 out of the water. Nothing even comes close. It looked better than PC games at the time.
@@Scudmaster11 If they were rendering a single frame every 1/30 seconds and displaying half the lines 1 frame and the other half the next, sure, that's 30fps. I'm pretty sure they just render 240 lines every 1/60 seconds though. If there is movement between alternating interlaced frames it's a lower resolution but not a lower framerate.
Thanks for watching, yeah this game looks crazy in motion - I play a decent amount of arcade racers and this still holds its own today even its original form, I'll have to look at the dolphin version.
@@traviscunningham7062 That's true but, it's annoying to always have to use a wiimote when launching ngc games. I'd agree if the wii menu was navigable using only the gamecube controller.
@@crywolfplays I know, It's just too beautiful to experience! But the test of fear, strength, the Lightfoot village test of strength, Dragon rock, and final boss were way too difficult and pretty much required a Turbo controller.
I'm glad super mario sunshine got a mention. The story and liquid mechanics for that game was absolutely stunning. I think the gamecube in general doesn't get as much accolades as it rightly deserves. Thanks for the trip down memory lane
I still have my gamecube and i do still pull it out when i want a change from PC games.. and i have to say.. it has graphics and sounds that rivals that of todays games (say all you want that your 40 minute game is 250 gigs in size... there isnt a mix up if it cant fix up... the graphics are over tuned so high that 0 detail is gained.. maybe try that one).. 2000s really was the time to be alive... Aero era brought so many good things
@@SoyAntonioGaminggood to know. I mean, i was 14 when it came out and loved it and still loved it years later on the wiiu, but its good to finally know that this is impossible.
The gamecube was never underrated or under appreciated for its visuals. Quite the opposite, it was highly celebrated at the time when bangers such as Rogue Leader and Resident Evil 4 dropped. Nintendo just screwed the pooch at the time with 3rd party licensing and an arbitrary media format.
No, promise, as someone who lived through the generation as a GCN fan this video nailed how most people responded (baby games) while time has seen the aesthetics of the system really get appreciated for not just making terrible 3D BS. But don't pretend like anyone was appreciating what the GCN was doing...it absolutely was not
@@TheLastZonai not disputing that they made a good business decision by becoming the budget option just saying that for the hardcore gamer community it’s always been a letdown that Nintendo consoles are not as powerful as the others.
@@todesziege nah, it’s the normie gamers are the reason why gaming is in the state it is in today. Whenever something gets super popular with normies is usually the end of it being any good.
One should not forget that Gamecube also had the best version of Tales of Symphonia. 60 frames per second, eye-popping colors (whereas the recent "remaster" has more washed out graphics), excellent sound quality, and the art style still holds up.
Fun fact about RE4 on the GameCube, it's actually superior to the PS2 version in almost every way. The sound files and texture assets aren't compressed as much so the Cube version is actually noticeably better in terms of graphics and audio
Absolutely loved the gamecube. Got it on release with rogue squadren 2. So many games not only looked phenomenal but were also 60fps! Resident Evil 1 remake is imo the best remake ever imo too and that was a cube exclusive. I remember pouring over screenshots in magazines of resi 1 remake on the cube. My goodness there was only 6 years and 1 generation between resi 1 on ps1 and resi 1 on the cube and just LOOK at the difference. They chose to stick with prerendered backgrounds which helped free up some space for very detailed character models and some great lighting and reflection usage. Still looks fantastic to this day.
I bought all 3 systems that generation on day one. I loved them all, but really enjoyed the GameCube. I could never understand why people bad mouthed it, because to me it seemed the nicest one of the bunch. I enjoyed a ton of games in that era (so many came out that I still swear I’m going to go back and beat them), but the GameCube was a standout.
I have pretty much the same view as you on this subject. I remember being blown away by the game cube back when I got it. I often think that it holds up so well today.
Let's give a shout-out to that fantastic Gamecube controller, too! You could actually tell what a button was just by its feel, and any time a button prompt appeared on the screen, you NEVER had to think about what button it was. Unlike the PS2 where a budget TV screen made Square and circle indistinguishable, or the xbox where you HAD to look at the controller simply because it was new.
I loved my GameCube. With the great first party line up and solid third party support (Prince of Persia, RE4, Rogue Squadron, Soul Caliber 2, Ultimate Spider-Man, Viewtiful Joe, Etc) it kept me a happy gamer.
My first tv console was the Gamecube, we had no tv at home. I did some jobs, bought a tv, a used Gamecube, Resident Evil 0 and REmake, Wind Waker, Freedom Fighters, Mario Sunshine, Mario Kart, Hitman 2, Second Sight, Splinter Cell CT... And many more over the years. RE0 was the first I played on it. I played only Game Boys before that. Occasionally PS1 when visiting friends. My mind was blown. GC and Nintendo were forever etched in my mind as where games looked REAL or just beautiful and a ton of fun. PS2 & 3 & 4 were to play some games not available on Nintendo systems, but I always hated the controller, boring interfase, and diehard "hardcore"fanbase.
Many of the older games have a charming aesthetic that makes me think of old paintings, you know? I haven’t bought any console or gaming dedicated machine since 2002 because I knew gaming already peaked. There’s still tonnes of amazing looking games I’ve never even played yet.
This will FOREVER be my favorite console of all time. I still have it and fire it up every now and then. F-Zero GX and Metroid Prime are my favorite games ever.
Art style almost always trumps cutting edge graphics in the long term, but the gamecube was the generation that got them both right. It was peak Nintendo 1st party.
I remember being impressed with the Tony Hawk games' graphics on Gamecube. On my CRT, Gamecube games looked perfectly sharp. It's weird to see them blurry on modern screens.
You can get special HDMI adapters that help clarify some of the resolution/blurryness issues, but yeah its hard to capture that perfect smoothness of the CRT tvs where 480p actually looked really nice/clear. I find this most noticeable in the Metroid Prime games, which looked perfectly clear/smooth on CRTs.
@@crywolfplays yes, on CRTs you could not really perceive the blurriness, as well as the pixelation, unless you are viewing on a larger TV. A lot of older 2D games based their design on how a CRT would display it, including how the colors would blur into each other, sometimes creating perfect gradients, or realistic details that aren’t really apparent on modern screens.
the jump fron N64 to Gamecube its insane and never have been replicated, Smash Bros to Melee I coud'nt believe it I thought everything was pre-rendered.
I remember the first time I saw Smash Bros Melee in person was at a kiosk in the store and I couldn't believe it, had to wait forever for a turn to play
This is exactly why I've personally never cared about graphics as a selling point of a game or system... Because what matters is the gameplay and story, and asking do the graphics choices serve those points
When i feel sick or bad, i just replay a GC game. My favorite one is MK double dash, just feel alive in everything, and Skies of arcadia legends (the upgrade of dreamcast) will forever stay my best rpg ever. But definetly GC gave me so many memories, recently i was replaying starfox adventure, a friend who saw me play it, say "Damn that water is gorgeous for a 20years old game".
It's the only console i have had that the launch games kept me happy for months. Monkey Ball, Luigi's Mansion and Rogue Leader. Launch games are normally subpar but not on GameCube.
I still remember seeing a screenshot in the newspapers at the time comparing a shot of an x-wing to the actual movie and how close it actually looked. The lighting was always really clean.
Mario 64 blew my mind as a kid, that jump to 3D will never happen again. Later, Gamecube came out and I was like oh cool yeah uh huh AND THEN THAT METROID PRIME TRAILER DROPPED!!! 🤯🤯🤯 Gawd. Damn. Samus looked phenomenal! the world, the gameplay, the big bosses, All of it!! Core memory right there! 💪
GameCube really -did- does have incredible graphics. Cel shaded and heavily stylized games are an easy layup for graceful aging, but it really sunk in for me when I looked back at the Resident Evil remake ~20 years after I played it.
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@@OJK86 Thanks so much!!
A large part as to why they still feel good is we still have cartoony games like Mario and Fortnite. The difference between them isn't huge. And Resident Evil is still a masterpiece.
The Gamecube custom PowerPC 3 was improved and they added around 50 new SIMD instructions. The memory of the Gamecube may have been lower than the Xbox but was supirior 1T-SRAM with lots of lower latency than the regular DDR RAM that Xbox 1 was using, not to mention that Nintendo also added 3MB of embedded 1T-SRAM as cache, 1MB for texture cache and 2MC for FrameBuffer. Many try to say that Xbox GPU was superior than the Gamecube GPU due to not just for packing 23MHZ of clock speed instead of 163 MGhz, but also because the Xbox GPU had a programmable peipleline instead of Fixed-Function pipleline, but thats not correct since a programmable pipeline is much slower than fixed-function and its real adventage is about making the life easier for programmers and be more flexible, not for making the GPU more powerful.
😮😅😅😊
Art style trumps graphics everyday. That’s why the SNES era games still look good.
So many of those SNES games still look really nice
@@crywolfplays Chrono Trigger, Super Metroid, Link to the Past etc are all works of art
If you have shitty hardware sure, but i ain't playing shitty cell shaded crap on my super pc.
your loss @@UziGameGP
meanwhile the NES and N64
Metroid Prime was absolutely incredible. The level design the gameplay the lore the sound. Few games have been such a complete package.
I still listen to the soundtrack now on YT
hell yeah that game is a masterpiece. i often think about it or bioshock 1 for example.
My favorite game of all time
The level design and playability was top!
@@ic9628 its still criminal that i cant have it on spotify
F-Zero GX still blows me away to this day. Looks great, sounds great, plays great. Timeless.
Yeah that game just feels so smooth to play, it's my favorite arcade racer ever
Rock solid 60fps too.
Modern devs really have no shame
yeah it’s sega’s arcade division, amusement visions. tons and tons of incredibly sophisticated arcade design and thinking.
And they haven't brought it back! Ridiculous.
I'm a race game specialist, GX is still by far the best racer I've ever played. I put thousands of hours in over 2 years perfecting GX, it's the single most I've played any video game.
The sixth generation was this perfect sweet spot in time, it was before the HD era where budgets became too large for studios to consistently take risks, but computationally advanced enough to allow for all the rad experimentation we saw. Pikmin is to me the prime example, just so unique and there's still nothing like it to this day.
This is a really good point. Games had smaller budgets and more focused scope so you consistently had tons of great games with variety and quick sequels every 2-3 years ...I'd happily take smaller games nowadays if they were made faster with more risks and variety.
The way I look at the generations of gaming is this:
1st and 2nd generation: the beginning
3rd: refinement of 2d graphics and gameplay
4th: perfection of 2d graphics and gameplay, beginning of 3d graphics
5th generation: refinement of 3d gameplay
6th generation: perfection of 3d gameplay
7th generation on: iteration on everything before
Best generation there will likely ever be. Sega Dreamcast leading the way with innovation. Nintendo working at their absolute peak and trusting companies like Sega and Capcom to maximise their hardware. Microsoft launching a stylistic (I miss that, modern Xboxes all lack style) powerhouse with some strong internet heft.
Playstation 2 for basic pop stuff (the Wii of its era, for kids).
Every audience was catered to, lots of innovation and creativity. All lost to the miasma of buyouts and mergers.
Honestly I will blame the average consumer not the developers so much. As consoles became more powerful the average gamer demanded more realism and not quality gameplay and story. This led to many games looking incredible with bad game play mechanics and bad story or an extremely long development as seen with Rockstar’s releases. Nintendo on the other hand decided did not to listen to the average gamer and developed games same as they always did. Some have longer development than others but they put great focus on solid mechanics and fun story and are not too concerned with looking realistic and will embrace a more stylized look.
I think 360/ PS3 was the sweet spot. Online gaming for the first time working well and easily accessible, enough power for bigger 3D levels and worlds (Oblivion for example), the controllers had all the necessary buttons, and most 3D games finally had the now standard correct way of twinstick controls figured out. There were also many awesome new franchises with multiple entries.
Of course this was also the generation that introduced day-one-patches, updates, and expensive dlc's, but those things only became unbearable with the generation after.
I think people are realizing we haven't really progressed that much from the PS2/Xbox/GC era, especially gameplay-wise
Yeah we went backwards. That’s why older games are more loved than new games
Exactly what I said it’s not nostalgia either they were plain fun sure the graphics suck but we should go back to that time we don’t need realistic games
Step up the gen and your spot on, that's just how it's been since the digital rise.
@@droid4d279the graphics don't suck though. Didn't you watch the video you are commenting on?
@@droid4d279Lol these graphics doesn’t suck, far from it.
Another thing that adds to these games is how smooth they are to play. Inputs are responsive and don't feel clunky.
For sure, games like F-Zero feel more responsive than a lot of modern games.
Super Smash Bros Melee is literally one of the deepest and most responsive video games ever created. It's smooth and extremely precise gameplay make it a popular e-sport even today, some 23 years after it's initial release.
Especially if you're playing on a CRT
I saw a video with a guy speculating how an entire generation of programmers has come up that aren't really game programmers, not like they were back in the day. Before programming was in schools most of the game devs had to be self taught and learn from scratch and they all built their chops on arcade games which always had to have tight addictive gameplay to keep people playing. Today almost all gameplay is third person action with the exact same controls and cameras, it's lazy and not interesting. Something like RE4 remake, which everyone loves but I personally think is a massive step down. The gameplay is so less tight and responsive it is night and day compared to the OG. Developers today just don't have the same skills when it comes to making great mechanics.
Counterpoint: there was a time when platformers absolutely dominated gaming and a lot of those were rubbish too. There’s still plenty of innovation but admittedly, the GC era was kinda magic.
How could you forget about mentioning the Resident Evil remake and Resident Evil Zero? Those games looked almost photo realistic for my teenage eyes back then!
Thats valid, I tried to pack a bunch in here but I'm curious what I might have missed or forgotten about like these
I agree. The Resident Evil remake in my opinion had the most incredible detail / visuals on the entire system and it is still stunning to look at today.
Prerendered backgrounds make that easy, so its not the best example. RE4 was a great example because the Ps2version looked so much worse in comparison.
@@Mojo_Dojo333 Using prerendered backgrounds doesn't make those games look any less impressive. They still had to have highly detailed 3D objects to blend in with the background. Plus the backgrounds wherent just static, they they had dynamic elements.
If it was that easy the game wouldn't have stayed a gamecube exclusive for the rest of the generarion.
Mgs twin snakes is the best mgs. Imo. Its perfect. Legendary game. Skies of arcadia is legit. Metal arms and battalion wars: legit. Even red faction 2 is on the gamecube. Peak red faction. Hitman 2: peak hitman. It has loads of great games.
Honestly it was Nintendo in their prime. What a great period of time to live through. I have such fond memories of the GameCube.
Nintendo is the richest company in Japan with 11 billion dollars of value and no debt. What do you mean when you say it was their prime?
@@neonbelly9491 likely regarding game development.
The jump from the N64 to the GameCube is one of the biggest leaps in graphics quality in history! And it won't happen again.
PS2 to PS5 was bigger leep
@@SoyAntonioGaming That doesn't count! I'm talking from ONE generation to the next. Else we could say the leap from NES to the Switch. Which is very silly to even compare. You're not silly, are you?
@geminijinxies7258 he is.
@@SoyAntonioGamingDumb comment, they obviously meant 1 generation to the next
Not as big as the jump from the SNES to the N64
During the sixth gen’s heyday, I had a college roommate that believed the GameCube was the graphically weakest console. Then I showed him Resident Evil 4…
Bruh i remember when i first saw that game 🤩
@@kimbo2427 mind-blowing visuals for the time, and the game was such a shift from what RE and action games in general had been for years prior. there's a reason it's considered one of the greatest games of all time. what an amazing era to be a gamer!
GameCube had a lot of great looking bangers for sure. But idk ffx was visually extremely good too on ps2. Also, ps2 had ffxi which also looked great. Shining force neo on GameCube was sick, both systems had great looking games.
@@CR-un7wl very true, but that’s not the point I’m making. Because of Nintendo’s reputation as being for all audiences, its perception was as a “kiddy” company and its games and console were weaker graphically than the competition. My college roommate had this perception. He argued the usual suspects on PS2 and Xbox at the time as examples of games with great graphics (which they were) that GameCube couldn’t match. I changed his mind with RE4.
@@earlyriser03 yeah to your point, lots of people considered realism a measure of graphical strength at the time. Had more to do with the games than the hardware.
Eternal Darkness blew me away when i played it this year, its a gem of a game on the Gc
Excellent game. Shame the sequel died.
I really wish they would remaster it like they did Metroid prime
@@kimbo2427 ikr I think if given the chance on switch and it being the only M rated Nintendo has ever produced. It would have gotten a lot of new fans today.
@@Oceanandskylinevidss agreed bro most definitely
Emio the smiling man (;@@Oceanandskylinevidss
6:16 I was surprised years later to hear people who only played on the PS2 state confidently that (they thought) Sony's console was the most powerful one for the generation, when both the GameCube and the Xbox were both _very obviously_ superior in most respects. (The PS2 did beat the GCN when it came to storage space and widescreen support.)
But then I was also surprised to find out that some hardware experts consider the GameCube to be more powerful than the Xbox. The difference here being that there are actual facts behind those statements, and it's tied to the console's unusual feature set.
When the Metroid Prime remaster was released, a Retro developer talked about how the GCN allowed for impressive lighting effects practically "for free" which couldn't be replicated on the Switch without a significant hit to the framerate, so they were left out. The GCN version of Phantasy Star Online also ended up being the prettiest one, as the hardware was capable of generating effects the Xbox wasn't.
Thanks for sharing, yeah I saw those developer interviews and it's really interesting. GameCube really was in the same arena as the Xbox technologically, it's interesting to see how specific hardware capabilities translated to the games
ps2 had a very interesting design, and could really push some effects that the gc and xbox would have a problem with, also in the right hands it could really push a lot of polygons (look at the ratchet and clank, jack and dexter).
@@vojislavjankovic-q4i Ratchet and clank and the Jak games were so awesome on ps2
I love the GameCube, but let's face it the Xbox was the most powerful of the bunch by far. It can push resolution up to 720p /1080i. Most of the multi port games look and run better on the Xbox. It has some advanced lighting and reflects technologies.
Even if the GameCube had some impressive looking games, and had some of its specs technically better than the Xbox it is significantly less powerful. Xbox had a foot in the 7th gen.
I still have a PS2 and GameCube and yes, I think GC had the edge overall but I still prefer the PS2, mainly because it seemed the more grown up than the GC and that was also true of the games, which seemed a bit childish and cutsie . The only game I had on both PS2 and GC was the second smugglers run game. I think the GC version looked slightly better but weirdly didn’t play as well as the PS2 version. In respect of GC vs Xbox 1 well it’s very clear the Xbox was by far the more powerful but again, I’d rather the PS2 over the Xbox and again, it’s purely down to the exclusives.
Star fox also had bump mapping and fur shading
This game was just crazy for the time, I loved it as a kid.
Luigi's Mansion also had bump mapping and it looked great.
Rare's one and only game on the Gamecube too. It's so weird to me seeing the Rareware logo on the Starfox Adventures case and thinking about what could have been had Rare stayed with Nintendo.
@@Nutty151 Rare became very slow at making games, and is why Nintendo sold them. The list of Rare game isn't long the last 25 years.
Kinect Adventures, Kameo, Perfect Dark, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Conker Reloaded and Sea of Thieves.
@@V3ntilator I thought all those problems came AFTER the sale of the company? I know Starfox Adventures was originally a Rare rpg with unique characters. It was turned into a Starfox game at the behest of Nintendo. Just before Rare was sold to Microsoft the company had some games planned for Gamecube, like Perfect Dark Zero, Donkey Kong Racing, Conker's Other Bad Day, Banjo-Threeie, and more.
4th gen - beautiful graphics
5th gen - dog piss graphics
6th gen - gorgeous graphics
7th gen - realistic graphics
8th gen - realistic graphics in higher resolution
9th gen - BUGS BUGS BUGS UNFINISHED ALPHA MICROTRANSACTIONS
haha! True!
LACK OF ORGINALITY, ONLY REMASTERS
5th gen has actually some of the most beautiful 2D games ever made.
Even the PS2 2D games didn't look as good as PS1, because, for example, some of the Neo-Geo ports had filters which messed up the pixel art.
Besides, the PS2 focused almost exclusively on 3D. The PS1, on the other hand, had many gorgeous 2D games, like Lomax or Legend of Mana.
As for the Saturn, it was THE ultimate 2D powerhouse of the 90s, even more than the Neo-Geo.
It might be the console with the most Neo-Geo and arcade ports ever made. Dodonpachi, the Real Bout Fatal Fury games, Night Warriors...
If we're talking 3D though, definitely, it's the generation which aged the worst.
Realism should be for scientific simultations and virtual reality, not for games.
@@JaggedMercenary yeah i meant 3D, not 2D like Negaman X4
To put into perspective how amazing Rogue Squadron 2 is, my dad is 75 and he will bring that game up and reminisce on how cool it was, but he could never beat the first mission.
I as a child stopped playing that game because I could never beat the first mission 😢
im pretty sure that was also my experience
Same situation, except my dad cleared the game and never talks about it.
Played it so much I gold medalled everything in primary school...
The first mission is super easy lmao
Not just graphics. Each entry in mainline series was super in depth with so much content, the best performance and controls, you name it. Since then the mobile trend started and bled into the consoles too - releasing unfinished buggy games with drip fed patches and DLC over years, which still did not amount to the fun factor, amount of content, replayability of the GameCube titles.
But let's never re-release them anywhere. -Nintendo
We need a GameCube classic or GameCube virtual console so bad. Even though some GameCube games have come to switch in various forms, we need the full original library
I’ve played most Mario Kart games, and I still hold Double Dash as the best one of all. The feel, the maps, having two characters on board, the music, everything is just perfection.
I agree. It's definitely one of the very top in the franchise for me.
The tracks were something else. Still my favourite entry in the series based on tracks alone. Although it also looked great.
@@todesziege The tracks are definitely top tier.
I booted up F-Zero GX a few years ago and was floored it was running in 60fps
🤯Your mind when you find the framerate of the average SNES game ;)
Yes, 60fps. That was the standard on Gamecube and Dreamcast. Then Gen 7 & 8 came along and framerate was dropped for resolution. Gen 6 is my favourite console era.
Even at the time I strongly felt consoles went HD too early. Just about the time we started to be able to "fill out" a 640x480 image detail-wise and with a good framerate, it was all thrown away for choppy HD with blurry textures.
Most weren't a true 60fps though. They had inconsistent drops into the 40-50s.
Most games in generation 7 ran at sub HD as in 540p and 640p.
Damn, I never realized Gamecube ran most games at 60fps. That is actually really impressive.
I’ve always said this to people, Metroid prime echos BLEW MY MIND as a kid. Even more than halo.
That game was so crazy, it felt like the future
It's hopeful now that its port has been delayed. It's likely due to Prime Remastered being so succesful that they're now giving Echoes the full remaster treatment.
It definitely has better graphics and gameplay than Halo in my opinion
boomer moment here: I remember downloading (very slowly) and then watching the trailer for smash bros melee in 240p on my older brothers computer before the game came out. And we sat there blown away by the insane level of detail. We watched that trailer back to back at least 50 times. What a time to be alive in the year ~2001.
P.s: Shoutout to wave race bluestorm. That was also a launch title for the GC and showed off some very impressive water for the time.
I did the exact same thing for the melee trailer, I still remember it. I hadn't seen anything like it at the time, I kept replaying it after downloading it because I almost didn't believe it
Man...
It still looks amazing to this day
Other consoles were not able to compete water effects seen on
Wave Race: Blue Storm and Starfox Adventures, -that was also first game ever to have fur all over on characters instead of skin.
Character models on Super Smash Bros Melee were jaw dropping as well, i remember constantly pausing the game just to move camera around the characters & admire.
I think the best enviromental lighting effects were on Eternal Darkness, when played on CRT or Plasma -TV. Early LCDs simply could not do justice of incredible enviroments.
Most realistic looking NGC-game is Roque Squadron 3: Rebel Strike. On some missions, folks who watched me playing literally believed i was watching Star Wars movies on DVD!
Good points here - GameCube games looked so good on a high quality CRT screen - they had a smooth richness that's difficult to perfectly recapture on modern LED/OLED screens.
Bloodwake on Xbox had dope water effects.
But, no one cared or played them. PS2 and XBOX were miles better.
@@intellectic9155 NGC had better exclusives, though.
None of the games on PS2/XBOX are better than something like Metroid Prime, Eternall Darkness, Super Smash Bross Melee or The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess. And i'm not talking about graphics only.
Best exclusive game on PS2 is Eye Toy: Play. Best XBOX exclusive is OutRun 2.
I should know, i had all the best games on all those consoles.
The GameCube controller is still my all-time favorite. Having large hands cramping can be an issue, but I never had this problem with the GameCube controller. Perfect size and button layout.
The GameCube controller is definitely a top favorite, I really like the positioning of the four face buttons. The only issue I have is the C-Stick being semi difficult to use for dual analog games, though it also feels better with other types of games.
Easily the most comfortable "modern" controller. I'd take it over the overrated dual shock any day.
You should check out both the 8BitDo GC controller mod and the Hand Held Legends GC Ultimate Controller.
I still remember the first time getting the Gamecube controller in my hands, it was so much better than the Playstation controller it's still mindblowing to me.
@@graalcloud I still can't go back to a PlayStation controller without feeling annoyed at the regression.
Seeing rouge leader at a kiosk in 2001 ish blew me away and I was sold. I had to have one. I’m still obsssed now with that game, I would die for a remaster. It’s incredible.
still boggles the mind how the Gamecube performed so poorly despite having one of the most impressive lists of games under its belt even to this day
This is so true, the gamecube lineup is crazy for only a five year life cycle with a small user base, it has one of the highest quality libraries of any console
Xbox came out a few months later, and it had built in online functionality, and voice chat for games like COD, and Halo. I love the gamecube, but it didnt stand a chance.
Gamecube is to n64 as snes is to nes, it's "Nintendo polish." I wish people remembered it like that and not just as the joke people made it into at the time. I didn't even know it's processing was more powerful than ps2, or that's it had re4 first. It's my favorite for sure, i feel like Nintendo may have peaked with GameCube honestly.
Yeah, I feel like the GameCube just received so much undeserved ridicule for so long that it altered perceptions. It's actually just a fairly "normal" awesome console beneath the purple shell
Nintendo peaked with GameCube and it's been all downhill ever since. If Nintendo leadership would pull their heads out of their asses, they would return back to the basic, tried-and-true formula of a normal non-gimmick controller, a console with solid hardware specs, and cultivating new franchises that normal non-weeb adults can enjoy. It is frustrating as a consumer that Nintendo has tailored their products towards a demographic of infantile children and otakus.
@@eclipse_434 It's easy to see why they made those decisions, though. I'm sure they have comtemplated the approach that you (and many others) are suggesting --- and come to the conclusion that it is not viable.
@@todesziege You're making excuses and coping hard. Sony and Microsoft have demonstrably proven with Xbox and Playstation that there is a healthy audience and demographic who enjoy playing regular ass games on a regular ass console with no stupid gimmicks. Also, people who play Xbox and Playstation have a diverse array of interests in more childlike baby games (like Spyro, Ratchet & Clank, Crash Bandicoot, etc) as well as more mature titles for a developed adult audience (Halo, God of War, Uncharted, Doom, etc.). Nintendo relies on stupid technological gimmicks and shameless Otaku pandering due to the tasteless, servile, childlike interests of Nintendo's consumers.
@@eclipse_434 Sony and Microsoft are (Sony more so back in the day) non-gaming megacorporations with nearly endless money supply that can afford to outspend any regular game company. You can't beat them head-on.
I remember it like it was yesterday. They had a gaming station with several GameCubes in a local store. You had to take the escalator one floor down and right after it there was it. 4 GameCubes, each one with a different game. My go to? Rogue Squadron 2. I was blown away by how amazing it looked, the difference in graphics coming from N64 was day and night. I played the Death Star mission over and over trying to get a gold medal.
Played it a 20ish years later again and it still looked sooo unbelievably good. Maybe I wiull get that Wii with GameCube support some day...
GameCube graphics hardware was so good that Nintendo didn't bother changing them for the Wii
No. Nintendo didn't change it because they didn't care. They didn't even have the most powerful console as that was the Xbox. Also the Wii was much closer in power to a PS2 than a PS3/360
@@crestofhonor2349 I was being tongue-in-cheek 🙄
The only game I remember playing on the gc was melee at a friend's house and it always looked pretty shitty compared to brawl
@@crestofhonor2349GameCube and Xbox both had their strengths and weaknesses.
@@crestofhonor2349 It is absolutely debatable if Xbox or Gamecube are better. And to be honest my money is on Gamecube for that debate.
So many games ran at a solid 60fps, and a lot of them also had extremely short load times. Kirby Air Ride strikes me in particular-you choose a race and you are in it immediately.
I never got to play that game unfortunately, was it good?
@@crywolfplays I think there are much stronger games on the system but it has its fans and is worth playing.
@@crywolfplays Me and my friends sunk HOURS into that game. Also local co-op in Phantasy Star Online
Gamecube was the last of that generation that I bought. First PS2, then Xbox, then GC. But that little thing became my favorite place to play most multiplats. The PS2 had a few exclusives that made me keep it around, and for any game that had online functionality, the XBox was the place to go, but for everything else, I really enjoyed the GC. I remember playing Prince of Persia sands of time, and NFL Street for months on end with my friend. Grew up with the NES, but I still say that this generation was my favorite. All were distinct, all had their ups/downs, gaming was growing, studios put out mostly quality games at the time. Just a great generation.
This was my favorite generation too. I liked my PS2 but the GameCube was what I always kept coming back to the most. Had a friend with an Xbox and it was cool but there weren't enough games I was interested in to convince me to buy one when cash was short at the time
Thanks for this great retrospective on the GameCube. It was _the_ console for me when I was a kid, and so many early memories of gaming are tied to it. Awesome video.
Thanks so much for sharing, I also have so many great memories with this console, playing smash bros with friends endlessly and so many good single player adventures.
Why aren't Resident Evil 1 Remake and Resident Evil Zero on this list? They are the best ones for me and look even better than the more recent remastered versions.
Probably because they used pre-rendered backgrounds. They didn't have fully rendered 3D environments. I do agree that they're both probably the best looking games on the Gamecube, but that's due to how effective pre-rendered backgrounds can be.
The jump was absolutely insane between N64 and GameCube, it happened in every previous console in this generation.
This comment will probably get buried but fun story
In 2017 shortly after the Switch came out I was replaying Thousand Year Door on my GameCube. I had a friend who was a notorious Nintendo hater, but he got swept up in BotW hype and got a Switch. We'd debate all the time on realistic vs stylized graphics, me defending the latter, and there was just no convincing him that stylized aged way better and were generally preferable. Anyways, I had him and a few friends over to hang out and all play our Switches and just goof around. I had already finished BotW to my heart's content so I busted out my GameCube and started playing TTYD. My back was to said friend and he couldn't see what controller I was holding. He was GAWKING at how smooth the game looked and was stunned. He asked he what the name of the game was because he didn't remember seeing that on the Switch release line-up and wanted to download it ASAP. I, very smugly, turned to him and said "Thank you for proving my point, this is a GameCube game with stylized graphics that you are gawking over".
He never debated with me again.
Also, one GORGEOUS GameCube game I think doesn't get mentioned that much was the Resident Evil 1 Remake. That game is still STUNNING
This is a great story, thanks for sharing! Thousand year door still runs super smooth and looks great. I actually generally prefer stylized graphics, or realistic graphics with a stylized flavor mixed in. Makes the game more unique and timeless.
Game cube was very underrated
60 fps looking that good with great art style is a masterful combo by Nintendo for the gc era.
It's so silly that we get neither in modern games.
60fps is more common than ever on the consoles. Great art styles still are around. Not every game looks realistic and if you do think that you aren't paying attention to the gaming industry
@crestofhonor2349 in today's gaming world there shouldn't be an option for a performance mode. Games need to default 60fps.
Yeah I should pay more attention when my switch games are mostly running at 30fps too.
@@michaelsuezo I disagree. Performance modes are perfectly fine. Whether you want 30, 40, or 60fps is entirely up to preferences.
Also no games don't need to default to 60fps either. 60fps is better but it doesn't matter whether a game wants to be 30fps or 60fps.
@@crestofhonor2349 well the video just pointed out why these gamecube games stand out with having 60fps and great visual style so it does matter long term
@@michaelsuezo plenty of modern games have the exact same thing. All games have an art style anyways. But pretty much most games that release run at 60fps and plenty of games don’t use realism as their art style
I remember playing Rogue Squadron 2 in a HMV for about 2 hours because it blew me away!
The graphics on the GC were always easier for me to live with than PS2. The resolution difference was night and day and the fact that GC couldn't play DVDs was a non-issue for me. Never been much of a movie goer. I wanted a console for lovely looking games that played smoothly and I even liked the compact design of the console itself. Tbf though, I honestly don't think any of the consoles in that generation (GC/Xbox/PS2/Dreamcast) deserved to fail because they were all great and I've owned all four of them. It was a period of excellence.
Yeah I never liked how PS2 games looked. I'm not sure exactly _what_ it is, but the PS2 picture just always looked unappealing to me, compared not just to the GameCube or Xbox but also the Dreamcast.
Yeah Ps2s composite output is really bad, this is thankfully remedied playing PS2 games on a quality CRT with S-Video or component video. Cleans up it's picture substantially, but yes generally speaking the image quality was better on the other consoles
Never had an actual Gamecube even though my sister really wanted one but we ended up getting the Original Xbox to have with the PS2, the 6th generation was truly legendary. I would end up later around 2009-2010 playing all the Gamecube games on the Dolphin emulator and i realised that we really did miss another great console.
I just bought a Gamecube recently, also great timing on uploading this video.
That's awesome, hope you enjoy your GameCube.
Get mp 1 and 2
@@samuelcox4591 I had mp2 but not mp1, but also aren’t these games on n64?
@@screamingclockplays no there isn’t any Metroid games on n64
@@samuelcox4591 oh I’m sorry, I thought you’re talking about Mario Party
I remember being impressed with how fluid Blood Omen 2 felt on the GC vs the PS2. The GC Could have been an absolute bombastic success if they would have adopted standard DVD instead of mini-disc!
To be fair, showing a lot of Metroid Prime is a good choice, because that game has always been beautiful.
Great video. Subbed. Your channel deserves more love.
Thanks so much, I appreciate it!
Yep, I remember being absolutely mind-blown by the Metroid prime gameplay when I was a young teenager.
Couldn't believe how beautiful it was.
I remember being impressed every time you charged a shot and the lighting from the gun would reflect off of walls. In Phendrana drifts, It was absolutely stunning
@@YrkCrusher Man what a game... Amazing.
@@Rain1 amazingly, as much as I love remastered it doesn't have that kind of glow from the gun
The gamecube was the las of its kind, a xonsole that felt like a CONSOLE, no online bs, no multiplayer focus, pop the game on, sit down and play, xbox started the stupid trend of online games and tried SO hard to be a PC, and as someone that grew up with nintendo consoles and PCs, i hated what came after the gamecube, especially the xbox 360 and the ps3,
The GameCube was a legendary console, I would loose my mind if Nintendo chooses to release a $500 Switch 2, but we all know they wont...
Well Sony launched a $700 PS5 Pro. Nintendo never dropped the price of the Switch. so anything is possible.
The most “wow” moment I recall about the GameCube launch was just seeing the demos at Best Buy playing Rogue Leader on huge TV’s. The visual fidelity was absolutely insane at the time, far beyond anything I’d seen elsewhere.
I was a Nintendo kid, but I have to admit that the GameCube was the last system I was really a huge fan of. I avoided the Wii and Wii U. Switch is fine, but the GameCube was really magic to me.
Yeah I remember groups of people congregating around those demo kiosks and taking turns playing, people had never seen anything like it from a console at the time.
GameCube was in a league of its own when it launched.
Nintendo really fell behind from a graphical stand point with the Wii and never caught up.
My take is that the Gamecube was their last attempt at competing with a graphical powerhouse. They still lost that generation, despite all those great games, as they did with the N64. So I wouldn't say they fell behind. They chose to be there and compete on their own terms with innovative controls and whatnot, horsepower aside. And except for the Wii U, they've been successful at it. Spec wise the Switch 2 won't blow anyone away, it's said to be about as powerful at the Steam deck. But it may well blow players away in other ways. It will be interesting to see.
I still remember seeing Resident Evil 1 remake on Gamecube for the first time and not believing my eyes. It still looks gorgeous
While the X Box's emphasis on shaders may have been more forward looking, the GameCube was capable of doing so much more for that generation of systems by doing so many layers of cost efficient effects on top of effects on top of effects while maintaining smooth frame rates.
But Xbox had conker lr and just cause 1
Xbox was fully capable of doing what the gamecube was doing, it just had a different set of games. This was shown with how multiplatform games were becoming far more popular and Xbox versions often looking and running the best
@@crestofhonor2349 Actually, no. The GameCube was set up a bit differently. I'm sure some of the effects could have been programmed in just as some GameCube games like Rogue Squadron 3 had shaders programmed in despite the system not having a built in function for it. The best looking exclusives for GameCube generally looked and ran a little better than the best X Box exclusives. The color palette of that graphics card the X Box used always looked a bit ugly too.
@@davidaitken8503 I don’t really agree. The Xbox had some truly stunning graphics on the system that just weren’t possible. Shadow maps and stencil shadows were far more common on Xbox than GameCube. The original far cry was another impressive game and same goes for games like Doom 3 and Conquer Live and Reloaded on Xbox.
Rouge Squadron 3 was an attractive game at the time but there’s no reason it couldn’t run on the Xbox
@@crestofhonor2349 The original Far Cry was never released on the Xbox. You are just spreading misinformation at this point. Please stop.
GameCube developers were cooking with the tech they had. They didn’t need a DVD drive, just good games.
I actually think the emphasis of art style over technical capabilities got kicked into overdrive on the Wii.
Mad World, No More Heroes, Muramasa the Demon Blade and Wario Ware Shake it to name a few.
No it's games look way worse than game cube and even ps2.
Ps2 was able to run a 1000 km map in Just Cause 1.
I seen no more heroes, and it looks worse than 360 games like skate 3 because in the 360 period they used hidden artstyle and tech instead of just tech, so Wii was outmatched
@@PAINt0theMAX Say what you will about art style. That's subjective.
In terms of power, the Wii was basically a Gamecube with an improved graphics processor, faster processor, and 4x the amount of RAM.
When playing GameCube games, all it needed to do was slow down it's clock speed, and you get a perfect GC experience.
The 360 is a substantially more powerful system than the Wii. Any 2 games that are using the same art style on both platforms will look better on the 360.
Which is why so many Wii games were designed to be artistically distinct. And a lot of this can be hit or miss. No More Heroes is a fine example. It's easy to see how it could be considered butt-ugly. But comparing it to Skate 3 is really comparing Apples to Oranges.
Skate 3 is more technically impressive. But artistically, it's a dime a dozen game. I've seen that look before, over and over again. It looks fine, but utterly forgettable.
The Wii never got Just Cause. That's not because the platform couldn't handle it. It could have. Easily.
@@plentyofpaper the Saboteur, red faction guerilla and just cause 2 blow any Wii game out a the water
@@PAINt0theMAX You were claiming PS2 and Gamecube games looked better than Wii games. Which I'd strongly dispute.
The games you mentioned all beat anything the Wii offers on a technical level. Apples to apples, the Wii loses consistently to 360/PS3.
Compare the games you mentioned to Muramasa the Demon Blade, Wario Land Shake It, Mad World and Zelda Skyward Sword, we're now talking apples to oranges.
And I'll take the fresh art direction over technical excellence in each of those cases.
A lot of modern games take a cue from this artistic direction. You get a lot more games these days with a hand drawn approach or cel shading that was common on the Wii, but rare on the PS3 and 360. It's not entirely a technical limitation. It's valid artistic innovation.
@@plentyofpaper ps 2 had much more skilful cel shading than Wii and the 360 had its own artistic games search the Saboteur, Pgr 4 and just cause 2
I beat my first Resident Evil game on the GameCube. RE Zero looked so realistic to me back then. It seemed so life like. I beat the whole game using a physical game guide but still. The graphics seemed so next generation to me. Even kid games like Super Monkey Ball blew my mind. GameCube was fricken awesome!
Star Fox Assault still looks great to day. Also the on foot missions are great, just needs to polish it up
I agree the on foot missions can actually be pretty fun, I just don't think they look as good visually as the flying missions
@@crywolfplaysthe on foot missions are definitely fun but disappointing to see that they only run at 30fps, compared to the ps2 ratchet & clank games which run at 60. Still good stuff. I remember being disappointed that the graphics for the on foot missions weren't as good as Star Fox adventures at the time. The rail shooting levels run and look great though (60frames).
@@retrosoul8770 I agree, same here. I just made a new video about Star Fox Assault now that I'm apparently back in star fox mode.
I bought a copy of Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike and I was blown away by how good it looked. I grew up on the OG battlefronts and they were graphcially fine for the time. But man this game that came out at the same time was super detailed. The ship models look incredible. The effects look great. Its an underrated series for sure. But in general every game on the GCN looks amazing. I really want to get component cable for it and hook it up to a good old box tv and see how clear everything looks
That's cool, they sell some great adapters online that convert the gamecube or Wii output to HDMI so you can hook it up to modern TVs, that's another option.
@@crywolfplaysI still have the official Nintendo component cables but the TV I had that hooked up to was a 60inch LG Plasma and it looked and played amazing on that TV for years.
Now I have a 77 inch C1 OLED and don’t have a way to play it. I might invest in a retro Tink 4K or maybe get an hdmi converter instead. I just don’t know which one will get me a picture as good as the Nintendo component cables as that did a damn good job
Rogue Squadron III is really the best example of a Gamecube game blowing everything on Xbox and PS2 out of the water. Nothing even comes close. It looked better than PC games at the time.
I remember having a gamecube for a short period of time, and I was surprised how many games ran at 60fps back in the days
It is 30 fps because... 480i ... but thats fine.. who is counting
@@Scudmaster11 If they were rendering a single frame every 1/30 seconds and displaying half the lines 1 frame and the other half the next, sure, that's 30fps. I'm pretty sure they just render 240 lines every 1/60 seconds though. If there is movement between alternating interlaced frames it's a lower resolution but not a lower framerate.
@@Scudmaster11 480i isn't 30fps. 480i still runs at 60hz which translates to 60fps if you get a new frame every refresh. You can see 60fps on 480i
3:15 this game on dolphin right now looks insane, just the resolution upgrade alone makes it feel like a game released today by a smaller studio
Thanks for watching, yeah this game looks crazy in motion - I play a decent amount of arcade racers and this still holds its own today even its original form, I'll have to look at the dolphin version.
Rogue Leader 2 too. Played it side by side on Wii and Dolphin and the assets hold up so nicely.
The gamecube was an n64 on steroids, with a similar focus on local multiplayer.
It's still my favorite console to this day.
The Wii is my favorite.(because it can play GameCube games! ;)
@@traviscunningham7062 That's true but,
it's annoying to always have to use a wiimote when launching ngc games.
I'd agree if the wii menu was navigable using only the gamecube controller.
@@TheOfficalAndI playing GC on Wii is better as the cables to improve the video quality are much easier to get hold of.
@@TheOfficalAndI you can , using priiloader
There was that volleyball games that looked astonishing. The physics of bouncing objects was something to behold.
How crazy is this! I just finished playing Star Fox Adventures this morning!!! It's such an amazing game!!!
I loved that game and still do - it looks amazing and has dinosaurs, outer space, sci Fi and fantasy, planet hopping, what more could you want lol
@@crywolfplays I know, It's just too beautiful to experience! But the test of fear, strength, the Lightfoot village test of strength, Dragon rock, and final boss were way too difficult and pretty much required a Turbo controller.
me and my brother still say "how many scarabs you wish to gamble?? as a joke from time to time.
@@SeiShinCasios Omg, I love that! 🤣
@@SeiShinCasios :D Me and my sister say "Nobody brings me gifts anymore!"
I'm glad super mario sunshine got a mention. The story and liquid mechanics for that game was absolutely stunning. I think the gamecube in general doesn't get as much accolades as it rightly deserves. Thanks for the trip down memory lane
They ll look even more incredible if playing on an emulator in full HD
Not necessarily.. often the 'limitations' of the lower resolutions and CRT panels smoothed out some of the messier textures and polygons.
I still have my gamecube and i do still pull it out when i want a change from PC games.. and i have to say.. it has graphics and sounds that rivals that of todays games (say all you want that your 40 minute game is 250 gigs in size... there isnt a mix up if it cant fix up... the graphics are over tuned so high that 0 detail is gained.. maybe try that one).. 2000s really was the time to be alive... Aero era brought so many good things
8:31 The Mario Sunshine theme lives rent free in my head whenever I see this game.
The original Wind Waker legit looks better and will age better than the HD remake.
it cartoon game. is unplayabel if u are older than 3 yeers
@@SoyAntonioGaminggood to know.
I mean, i was 14 when it came out and loved it and still loved it years later on the wiiu, but its good to finally know that this is impossible.
@@SoyAntonioGamingAh yes, because cartoon games automatically means for kids. You’re so cool.
@@SoyAntonioGaming Unplayable if you have an IQ below 70.
I have to agree. I never had a GameCube though I’d always go to my friends and play theirs. Resident Evil 4 and Starfox Adventures really captured me.
The gamecube was never underrated or under appreciated for its visuals. Quite the opposite, it was highly celebrated at the time when bangers such as Rogue Leader and Resident Evil 4 dropped. Nintendo just screwed the pooch at the time with 3rd party licensing and an arbitrary media format.
No, promise, as someone who lived through the generation as a GCN fan this video nailed how most people responded (baby games) while time has seen the aesthetics of the system really get appreciated for not just making terrible 3D BS. But don't pretend like anyone was appreciating what the GCN was doing...it absolutely was not
@@ryancasey4637 I was appreciating! GameCube games looked so much better to me than PS2 games, but I was definitely in the minority.
Gamecube should’ve used the dual-layer Mini DVD format.
I miss the days when the leaps between generations were a real thing, nowadays we're just getting higher res ports of previous gen games
Back when Nintendo used to make power house consoles instead of low spec budget consoles
And sold less than 20 millions GameCube s while nowadays sells more than 140 millions of Switches 🤷🏻♂️
@@TheLastZonai not disputing that they made a good business decision by becoming the budget option just saying that for the hardcore gamer community it’s always been a letdown that Nintendo consoles are not as powerful as the others.
Power doesn’t really matter. What matters if the games are fun
@@redditor7548 The 'hardcore gamer community' unfortunately never puts its money where its mouth is, or gaming would be in a different state today.
@@todesziege nah, it’s the normie gamers are the reason why gaming is in the state it is in today. Whenever something gets super popular with normies is usually the end of it being any good.
I will never get rid of my GameCube and games. Library has straight bangers 🔥
One should not forget that Gamecube also had the best version of Tales of Symphonia. 60 frames per second, eye-popping colors (whereas the recent "remaster" has more washed out graphics), excellent sound quality, and the art style still holds up.
I remember being extremely amazed by Rogue Leader, Metroid Prime 2 and Crystal Chronicles graphic...they were something I never saw on PS2.
Fun fact about RE4 on the GameCube, it's actually superior to the PS2 version in almost every way. The sound files and texture assets aren't compressed as much so the Cube version is actually noticeably better in terms of graphics and audio
Absolutely loved the gamecube. Got it on release with rogue squadren 2. So many games not only looked phenomenal but were also 60fps! Resident Evil 1 remake is imo the best remake ever imo too and that was a cube exclusive. I remember pouring over screenshots in magazines of resi 1 remake on the cube. My goodness there was only 6 years and 1 generation between resi 1 on ps1 and resi 1 on the cube and just LOOK at the difference. They chose to stick with prerendered backgrounds which helped free up some space for very detailed character models and some great lighting and reflection usage. Still looks fantastic to this day.
Thanks for sharing, I miss gaming magazines, they were such a hype machine to get in the mail every month
I bought all 3 systems that generation on day one. I loved them all, but really enjoyed the GameCube. I could never understand why people bad mouthed it, because to me it seemed the nicest one of the bunch. I enjoyed a ton of games in that era (so many came out that I still swear I’m going to go back and beat them), but the GameCube was a standout.
I have pretty much the same view as you on this subject. I remember being blown away by the game cube back when I got it. I often think that it holds up so well today.
Component cables and an upscaler is a must on modern displays.
Metroid Prime 2 is my favorite game on the system. I still get a sense of awe setting sail in WindWaker. Resident Evil 4 did feel ahead of it's time.
Metroid prime 2 gets a bad rep sometimes but I think it's possibly the best in the trilogy and one of the very best metroids
@@crywolfplays I agree. Metroid Prime 2 is my 2nd favorite Metroid after Super.
Let's give a shout-out to that fantastic Gamecube controller, too! You could actually tell what a button was just by its feel, and any time a button prompt appeared on the screen, you NEVER had to think about what button it was. Unlike the PS2 where a budget TV screen made Square and circle indistinguishable, or the xbox where you HAD to look at the controller simply because it was new.
The GameCube controller was amazing, the chunky feeling goes so well with the art style and gameplay of most of the games, they work in harmony lol
I loved my GameCube. With the great first party line up and solid third party support (Prince of Persia, RE4, Rogue Squadron, Soul Caliber 2, Ultimate Spider-Man, Viewtiful Joe, Etc) it kept me a happy gamer.
My first tv console was the Gamecube, we had no tv at home. I did some jobs, bought a tv, a used Gamecube, Resident Evil 0 and REmake, Wind Waker, Freedom Fighters, Mario Sunshine, Mario Kart, Hitman 2, Second Sight, Splinter Cell CT... And many more over the years.
RE0 was the first I played on it. I played only Game Boys before that. Occasionally PS1 when visiting friends. My mind was blown. GC and Nintendo were forever etched in my mind as where games looked REAL or just beautiful and a ton of fun. PS2 & 3 & 4 were to play some games not available on Nintendo systems, but I always hated the controller, boring interfase, and diehard "hardcore"fanbase.
Many of the older games have a charming aesthetic that makes me think of old paintings, you know? I haven’t bought any console or gaming dedicated machine since 2002 because I knew gaming already peaked. There’s still tonnes of amazing looking games I’ve never even played yet.
This will FOREVER be my favorite console of all time. I still have it and fire it up every now and then. F-Zero GX and Metroid Prime are my favorite games ever.
Art style almost always trumps cutting edge graphics in the long term, but the gamecube was the generation that got them both right. It was peak Nintendo 1st party.
I remember being impressed with the Tony Hawk games' graphics on Gamecube. On my CRT, Gamecube games looked perfectly sharp. It's weird to see them blurry on modern screens.
You can get special HDMI adapters that help clarify some of the resolution/blurryness issues, but yeah its hard to capture that perfect smoothness of the CRT tvs where 480p actually looked really nice/clear. I find this most noticeable in the Metroid Prime games, which looked perfectly clear/smooth on CRTs.
@@crywolfplays yes, on CRTs you could not really perceive the blurriness, as well as the pixelation, unless you are viewing on a larger TV. A lot of older 2D games based their design on how a CRT would display it, including how the colors would blur into each other, sometimes creating perfect gradients, or realistic details that aren’t really apparent on modern screens.
the jump fron N64 to Gamecube its insane and never have been replicated, Smash Bros to Melee I coud'nt believe it I thought everything was pre-rendered.
I remember the first time I saw Smash Bros Melee in person was at a kiosk in the store and I couldn't believe it, had to wait forever for a turn to play
This is exactly why I've personally never cared about graphics as a selling point of a game or system... Because what matters is the gameplay and story, and asking do the graphics choices serve those points
When i feel sick or bad, i just replay a GC game. My favorite one is MK double dash, just feel alive in everything, and Skies of arcadia legends (the upgrade of dreamcast) will forever stay my best rpg ever. But definetly GC gave me so many memories, recently i was replaying starfox adventure, a friend who saw me play it, say "Damn that water is gorgeous for a 20years old game".
The GameCube was a little beast of the console. I remember when I first played Resident Evil 4 = Mind blown.
F-Zero GX Remaster TAKE MY MONEY!!
100%
It's the only console i have had that the launch games kept me happy for months. Monkey Ball, Luigi's Mansion and Rogue Leader.
Launch games are normally subpar but not on GameCube.
I still remember seeing a screenshot in the newspapers at the time comparing a shot of an x-wing to the actual movie and how close it actually looked. The lighting was always really clean.
Mario 64 blew my mind as a kid, that jump to 3D will never happen again.
Later, Gamecube came out and I was like oh cool yeah uh huh
AND THEN THAT METROID PRIME TRAILER DROPPED!!! 🤯🤯🤯 Gawd. Damn. Samus looked phenomenal! the world, the gameplay, the big bosses, All of it!! Core memory right there! 💪
GameCube really -did- does have incredible graphics. Cel shaded and heavily stylized games are an easy layup for graceful aging, but it really sunk in for me when I looked back at the Resident Evil remake ~20 years after I played it.
Resident Evil Remake and Resident Evil Zero were amazing and they looked phenomenal. Gamecube had quite a few timeless classics.
4:58 yes this game was amazing
My god .. Soul
Calibur 2 ( Yoshimitsu , Cassandra 😍 , Voldo , Ivy 😈 .. )
F-Zero GX and Rogue Leader also ❤
In the ps3 era I remember how amazed I was at the GameCubes graphics on both Twilight Princess and Resident Evil