Let's Play Every GameCube Game, Part 15
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Eurocom/EA, 2002)
Almost a third person shooter where you blast slow-moving balls of magic at everything. It actually fared quite well critically back in 2002, but I'm guessing you had to care about the IP to enjoy it. I was very bored murdering gnomes off a ledge and fighting a washing machine.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (EA UK/EA, 2005)
Now it's a co-op isometric shooter that really likes to make you stop and pick up rocks together. There was nothing very interesting in what I played except that Ron said "wicked", so he's canonically from Boston now. I don't care if people in the UK also say that or what the lore.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Warthog Games/EA, 2003)
Yes, this came out after Chamber of Secrets for some reason. It's a series of long, boring, and unskippable cutscenes that are occasionally interrupted for moments resembling gameplay. Here's a collectathon platformer sequence! Except that you jump automatically, so it's not really a platformer. Alas.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (EA UK/EA, 2004)
I played about three seconds of this because it is unstable in a way that can only be explained by evil spirits. No idea what the game is like, but I'm sure it's probably some kind of shooter.
Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup (EA UK/EA, 2003)
An absolutely dreadful sports game. It feels like flying through mud, looks horrible, controls even worse, and the announcer can hardly be bothered to say more than player's last names and some generic praise whenever someone scores a [ridiculous word for a goal].
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life (Marvelous/Natsume, 2003)
An incredibly long and boring cutscene about how to run a farm. I'm sure there's a game in there eventually, but I didn't get to it. All the games in this series are the same thing and I have sat through the same intro too many times.
Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life (Marvelous/Natsume, 2004)
The same game, but now you play as a girl. In case you're thinking that the series suddenly got less sexist since making marriage end the game for female players or requiring the male PC to help out in previous games, don't worry! Where the male lead was "destined" to lead the farm in Wonderful Life, the female lead here is just a curious "city girl" and Takakura can hardly put together three words without implying she's either a weirdo for wanting to come or that she's totally unprepared for it and should go home. Nevermind that the backstory is clear that the male lead is only here because of nepotism and she actually bothered to learn about farming before coming.
Harvest Moon: Magical Melody (Marvelous/Natsume, 2005)
You can play as a boy or girl on the same disc this time, and it doesn't even judge you for your choice. Look at Marvelous making progress from the 1950s! It sounds like it has more modern gameplay as well, but there were even more long and boring cutscenes to sit through and Stardew Valley exists now, so I'm not going to watch them just to play this game instead.
The Haunted Mansion (High Voltage Software/TDK Mediactive, 2003)
A third person shooter where you fire orbs of light from your lamp to kill ghosts. It's apparently based on a Disney ride based on the Disney movie rather than being based on the movie directly, which is not at all confusing when no one remembers either of those things anyway. The game is just as forgettable except for featuring what is quite possibly the worst attempt at a Southern accent in human history.
Hello Kitty: Roller Rescue (XPEC Entertainment/Namco, 2005)
A collectathon platformer with roller skates. If you're wondering how roller skates change the genre, the answer is "not at all". They inserted some very janky animations to make it so that your momentum stops instantly when you let go of any direction, making it so that moving on skates is indistinguishable from normal walking.
Hikaru no Go 3 (Konami, 2003)
A Go game based on a manga. Its contribution to the genre is adding slow animations and character voiceovers between every move, which makes it a horrible way to play Go unless you desperately need these characters injected into your game. I don't!
Hitman 2: Silent Assassin (IO Interactive/Eidos Interactive, 2003)
The second game starring the 47th Agent of Hitman Company. It reviewed very well back in the day, although the GCN version was worst off by a few points. Having played a bit on PC, I can see why - it's a bit worse graphically and the controls don't feel quite right on the GCN controller. This isn't a genre I'd ever play with a controller anyway, though, so I'm not exactly unbiased here.
The Hobbit (Inevitable Entertainment/Sierra, 2003)
Sierra had the rights to make games based on Tolkein's books at the same time as EA had the rights to make games based on the movies that New Line Cinemad had the rights to make based on Tolkein's books, which is how we got this game that clearly wants to have something to do with the movies even though it doesn't. It's loosely based on Zelda gameplay, I think, although it looks like absolute pants and doesn't play much better. All of the voice acting except for the narrator is pretty bad.
Home Run King (WOW Entertainment/SEGA, 2002)
If you're thinking this looks familiar, that's because it's a barely modified version of Gekitou Pro Yakyuu from yesterday's post. Which one is better? HRK removes the yellow dot and adds a pitch strength meter so there's a modicum of skill involved, but it also has an announce who is so blatantly just mashing together different voice clips that it's embarrassing. The best choice is to not play either of them.
Homeland (Chunsoft, 2005)
The only game for the GCN LAN adapter that didn't release in the West, Homeland was basically an MMO-lite that had up to 36 players working together to complete quests in a non-linear story with multiple endings. It sounds very cool, but it's clearly intended to be played with a group and that's no longer possible.
The list:
1080° Avalanche
Animal Crossing
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean
Batman: Dark Tomorrow
Burnout 2: Point of Impact
Charinko Hero
Chibi-Robo!
Cocoto Kart Racer
Cubivore: Survival of the Fittest
Custom Robo
Dark Summit
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
F-Zero GX
Family Stadium 2003
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
Freedom Fighters
Freekstyle
Gotcha Force