After playing with the Nintendo 64, the next console my cousins got was the Gamecube. While the Nintendo Gamecube was not my first console experience, it played a definitive role in my early childhood. The console had multiple family games that took full advantage of its 4 player option. Thus, its games were a favorite at parties as family get-togethers often had more than 3 kids. The close association with family fun cements the console in my memories. Even now more than a decade later, I still remember Kirby Air Ride and Super Smash Bros Melee.

The Gamecube looked exactly how it sounded. The console came in the shape of a cube with a carry handle at the back. The front had the 4 ports for 4 controllers and two ports for two memory cards. The top of the console had three buttons: power, reset, and open. A particular trait about the console was its games, specifically the CDs. The Gamecube CDs were much smaller than your average CD.

Family Gaming Experience

There were three specific games that we played during family visits: Super Smash Bros Melee, Kirby Air Ride, and MarioParty (unfortunately, I do not remember which number). All three of them were 4 player games that everyone could enjoy. Yet each was unique in its own way. Smash Bros Melee was a fighting game where you chose to play as characters from the Nintendo franchise in a team battle or free-for-all. The unique environments plus varying levels of individual skill made each game feel different, allowing for a nearly endless amount of replay value. Kirby Air Ride was a racing game where players selected different vehicles or “rides” to compete in a Grand Prix. Yet the game also had a free explore mode that enables 4 players to drive any vehicle they wanted throughout a city. Then there was MarioParty the ultimate board game transformed into a video game. The random minigames combined with boardgame like playthroughs made each round a new experience (until you played through all the minigames and maps).

The console was the only one I wanted and I fixated on the experiences I had with my cousins. The fun I had with them put the Gamecube console on a higher tier and it became the sole reason I decided to get a Gamecube despite my cousin’s already owning one. This console purchase would come later on with the release of Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness. I bought the Gameboy Advance adapter cable along the Pokémon XD so that I could transfer Pokémon between the Hoenn and Orre regions. The Hoenn region from Pokémon Sapphire and the Orre region from Pokémon XD were compatible despite a difference of at least 3 years. This backward compatibility of Nintendo games and devices was impressive and was a reason why I remained a fan of their games for years.