It’s fascinating to look back at Nintendo’s history. Just like all of us, the company has made some wise moves and some absolute splatteringly disastrous missteps, but that’s the rich tapestry of life. Sometimes, you have to have an appalling relationship before you meet your soulmate, and other times, you have to release the rather unfortunate Wii U before you can drop the now-beloved Nintendo Switch.
The GameCube’s position, I’ve often thought, falls somewhere in between those two extremes. In the battle against Xbox and PS2, it was utterly outshone by the monstrous success of the latter in particular. However, it also brought the world a string of wonderful new games. Some of the most beloved titles of all time found homes on the GameCube, and similarly, it marked the beginning of some now-iconic IPs too.
In 2001, with the Millennium Bug (whatever that was supposed to be) safely behind us, two incredible events happened that would impact my gaming life forever: the Game Boy Advance and GameCube both released, months apart. My very first gaming system was the original Game Boy (Super Mario Land: Six Golden Coins was a heck of an introduction to the industry),...
