My favorite console growing up was the Nintendo GameCube. I loved it so much that I carried that purple entertainment machine on its handle every weekend to my grandmother’s house in the Bronx. I loved it so much that even before my father bought me a GameCube for my birthday in 2001, I started saving every scrap of money that I came upon so that I could purchase a memory card (49 blocks of memory! Thanks Nintendo!), a game, Super Smash Bros. Melee (an excellent choice), and a carrying case. I bought the carrying case knowing that this machine and I were going places.
That was 2001, a weird year for an immigrant in the U.S. who happened to look Arabic. Let’s just say that I had a tough time. Luckily, the purple cube offered distractions that year in the form of Pikmin, Wave Race: Blue Storm, Luigi’s Mansion, Super Monkey Ball, and the aforementioned Melee. I had fun that fall and winter. Looking back at the console’s lifespan from (September 2001 to 2007), I understand why so many people have such fondness for it, but I am also disturbed by how expensive it has become to buy games for it on the retro market. The GameCube sold less than its predecessors and the competition. Today demand for its games on the retro market is high leading to ridiculous prices—supply and demand 101. Nostalgia has people chasing GameCube games.
I got rid of my GameCube in 2006 to make way for Nintendo’s newest console at the time the Wii. Back then it seemed like a no-brainer since the Wii included backward compatibility. In hindsight, unlike the Wii, the GameCube was a console that I “loved”—weird how we can have such strong emotions for something as frivolous as a video game console. Yet, it is because of this frivolity that I love that purple machine. Its quirky design and whimsical games spoke to the innermost parts of my soul.
A few months ago, nostalgia got the better of me. I forked over some money to buy a GameCube. It came bundled with a memory card with 49 blocks of storage (thanks Nintendo!), two controllers, and the console’s original box in decent condition. I also bought one game for it, FromSoftware’s Lost Kingdoms. I want to replay Lost Kingdoms and other games for the console that aren’t readily available unless emulated.
I look forward to playing Lost Kingdoms and maybe even writing about it on this site. This game made quite an impression on me when it was released in 2002. It shares a similar appreciation for gothic fantasy as FromSoftware’s more popular tiles. I have fond memories of it. I will also purchase some other games for the system in the future; maybe I’ll get Crazy Taxi.
*Picture taken by the author.
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