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The Nintendo GameCube had the unenviable task of following up on the Nintendo 64, which was a solid console, but lost a ton of market share to Sony’s PlayStation. A major reason for that loss was Sony’s embracing discs, which gave developers more memory to work with. The GameCube also had to fend off Sega’s Dreamcast and Microsoft’s Xbox, along with the PlayStation 2. It was a tough challenge, and while Nintendo’s efforts failed (falling to third place in sales), there were still several great games on the GameCube, a few of which have all-timer stories.
Here are five great games on the GameCube that impressed fans with an excellent story.
5) Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
The Paper Mario series has always given fans plenty of laughs, but The Thousand-Year Door is where the developers really hit their stride. The whimsical storyline features hilarious hijinks, characters you grow to love, and a few chapters that will surprise players with their creativity.
Granted, you do have to do a lot of reading, which isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s worth the potential eye strain. Thankfully, if you missed the GameCube version, Nintendo put out a full remake on the Nintendo Switch in 2024. It includes a few quality-of-life updates and redone graphics, animations, and music. If you’re looking for a great RPG that’ll make you laugh, this is the one to get.
4) Killer7
Killer7 is the first game from the wonderful mind of Goichi Suda that was released outside of Japan. He’d go on to earn much more acclaim with Nintendo fans with his No More Heroes series, but Killer7 brought his trademark style to the GameCube in a way that only Suda could.
You play as a group of assassins called the killer7, and work to take down several shady plots. I won’t spoil the ending, but let’s just say things might not be exactly what they seem. Sure, Killer7‘s first-person gunplay is mediocre at best, but the cel-shaded visuals and complex plot make up for it. While we’ve never gotten a follow-up, Suda and his team did release a reamster in 2018.
3) Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
Eternal Darkness is one of the more famous GameCube games these days despite never getting a follow-up. That’s because the Sanity Effects introduced by Silicon Knights were truly groundbreaking.
It wasn’t just jump scares. The developers used every trick in the book. You’d get a fake trailer for the sequel. There were simulated errors on your TV. It was one of the most inventive horror games of all time. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been anything since then.
Similar to the Nemesis system, Nintendo had something everyone loved in its hands and never really did anything with it. Silicon Knights closed a few years later, and while former director Denis Dyack tried to get a spiritual sequel up and running on Kickstarter, it failed to reach its goals twice. Hopefully, we get Eternal Darkness on Nintendo Switch Online someday.
2) Tales of Symphonia
The Tales series goes back to 1995, and fans are still getting new entries, with a remaster of Tales of Berseria coming in 2026. However, Symphonia is often seen as the beginning of the series gaining popularity outside of Japan. Don’t get me wrong, it was still much more popular in its home country, but English-speaking fans were starting to take notice.
That’s largely because of how good the story was. Each character in your party felt important, with plenty of thought and care put into giving everyone their own story. A few reviewers at the time favorably compared it to the cast of The Lord of the Rings, which feels apt.
While the main narrative might’ve been a little by the numbers, it’s more than enough when combined with all of the lovable characters you’ll meet along the way. Add in an exceptional battle system and a world you’ll love exploring, and you have one of the best GameCube games of all time.
1) Beyond Good & Evil
Image courtesy of Ubisoft
Beyond Good & Evil‘s Jade is a triple threat. Not only is she an investigative journalist, but she’s also an experienced martial artist and a spy working to take down a massive conspiracy. Thankfully, the game she stars in can keep pace with the hero, delivering one of the GameCube’s best games with a page-turner of a story, gorgeous graphics, and fun gameplay that mixes puzzle-solving and stealth.
There’s a reason BG&E is often cited as one of the GameCube’s hidden gems. It was not a commercial success on the system, but it has gained popularity over the years, thanks in large part to the appeal of Jade and her story. Ubisoft has been working on a sequel for a few decades now, but it might never happen.
We’ve seen a few trailers over the years, with the most recent one dropping in 2017. Since then, we haven’t heard much. It was supposedly still in development in 2021, but chances seem low that we’ll ever get BG&E 2. Thankfully, you can easily play the remastered version, as Ubisoft dropped a 20th Anniversary Edition in 2024.
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