Let's Play Every GameCube Game, Part 19
Konjiki no Gash Bell!! Yuujou no Tag Battle Full Power (Bandai, 2004)
An awful anime fighter with terrible character design (I picked the only tolerable ones), graphical styles that don't look like they're from the same game, and an AI that can be easily defeated by just mashing B endlessly. I don't have anything positive to say about it.
Konjiki no Gash Bell!! Go! Go! Mamono Fight!! (Eighting/Bandai, 2005)
Now it's ripping off Smash instead. The AI is less moronic and everything looks like it was made for one game, but I still hate the underlying creepy puppet character design. It's also not a good Smash clone - the cast is tiny, you can't pick who your fighting against, and everyone gets a quick-charging hyper beam that makes getting into melee fights pointless.
Korokke! Ban-Ou no Kiki o Sukue (Konami, 2004)
A godawful 1v1 fighter. It mixes 3D and 2D like it's SoulCalibur, but then it has the giant arenas of Smash, with the result being a confusing disaster. It's ugly, it controls badly, and special attacks can send your character about 15 miles. This is somehow worse than the last two anime fighters.
Kururin Squash! (Eighting/Nintendo, 2004)
Navigate a spinning bar through a maze. This is fine as a browser game to secretly play in 8th grade at school, but was anyone really asking for a full GCN game of it? Apparently not outside of Japan.
Largo Winch: Empire Under Threat (Dupuis/Ubisoft, 2002)
An adventure game based on a Belgian comic I've never heard of. It has dreadful English voice acting that could pass as a text-to-speech engine and a baffling control scheme. It's like tank controls, but the directions stay the same even when the camera angle changes and every control stick input seemed to make me go right.
Legend of Golfer (SETA/Nintendo, 2004)
A golf game with good graphics, but bizarre controls. A sets your shot, left on the control stick starts the meter, right on control stick stops the power bar, and then A stops the hook bar. Why all of that couldn't have been on just A is beyond me.
The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning (Krome Studios/Vivendi, 2006)
A dark reboot of Spyro with long cutscenes and horrible writing. The mixture of the classic cartoony shapes of Spyro with more realistic graphics doesn't work well, either, and it looks like a game from much earlier than 2006. I like it even less than fans did back then.
Densetsu no Quiz Ou Ketteisen (Nintendo, 2005)
A quiz game that seems pretty fully featured and even has character customization. Unfortunately, I can't tell you any more than that. The game requires a microphone, and if you don't have one plugged in, you get stuck on this screen with no way out. A quiz game with Japanese pop culture questions from sixteen years ago probably wasn't going to be all that fun anyway. If you're wondering why this is with the Ls, it's because Wikipedia's list inexplicably translated the title of this game (Legend of Quiz) even though all other Japanese titles are left as-is.
The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition (Nintendo, 2003)
A collection of the NES and N64 Zelda games along with a demo for Wind Waker and some bonus content. That is to say that it's four Zelda games I don't particularly enjoy playing, although I do think MM is at least a really cool idea and they all have great soundtracks. I thought about putting this on the list so I could give MM another shot, but I think it's just not for me.
The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (Nintendo R&D1/Nintendo, 2004)
A really neat game that uses the GBA link to create the only full-release Zelda experience that anyone remembers as anything other than a trivia fact. Unfortunately, that also makes it almost impossible to play today without putting in a ton of effort to find hardware or set up software gimmicks, and it's not particularly worth playing by yourself. I may put together the setup to play it again eventually, but I'm giving it a pass for now.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time / Master Quest (Nintendo EAD/Nintendo, 2002)
Look, I know this is one of the most popular games of all time and a defining part of many people's childhoods, but I don't like it. I can appreciate the music, and I've tried to play it quite a few times since it was my second-ever 3D Zelda game (after WW), but I only made it to the Shadow Temple the first time and never even got to Adult Link after that. Something about the controls and overall world design just feels constantly grating.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Nintendo EAD/Nintendo, 2006)
Twilight Princess missed out on my top 100 list because I replayed it in 2017 and discovered I liked it a lot less than I thought I did, in no small part because of the Wii's inconsistent motion controls. I've never actually played the GCN version and always assumed that the world flip would be too disorienting, but maybe it's time to find out if more consistent controls can save the day?
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Nintendo EAD/Nintendo, 2002)
Another of my top 100 games, and, like TP, another game that I enjoyed a lot less on replay. WW's exploration and world detail don't hold up to modern games, but it made that list anyway on the strength of its art and music. I'm always reluctant to name a single favorite OST, but I think I'd say WW more often than not if I had to pick. My last replay of it was about six years ago at this point, so maybe I'd have a better time coming in with lowered expectations for the world? One way to find out.
Legends of Wrestling (Acclaim Salt Lake City/Acclaim, 2002)
Right, back to trash games. This wrestling sim has almost no sound beyond the occasional grunt and makes you wait for a second, longer, loading screen after you've survived the first and watched the wrestler walk-ons. There are long pauses between animations like the wrestlers have forgotten the script and need to remind each other what comes next. The crowd is two rows of terrible N64 models followed by low-res sprites. It's a bad game.
Legends of Wrestling II (Acclaim Salt Lake City/Acclaim, 2002)
If you're wondering how they managed to make two of these in 2002, it's because they're the same game with modified UIs. This one maybe has a bit more content and the soundwork is better, but all the other problems are still present. If I had six more months to work on a game, getting rid of that second loading screen would've been my priority.
Lego Star Wars: The Video Game (Traveller's Tales/Eidos, 2005)
A LEGO retelling of the first three Star Wars movies, which bucks the movie game trend by actually being quite good. I'm not going to put it in the list because TT has spent the last 16 years making countless clones of this title and there are many better wars to get the same gameplay now, but it was a blast at the time. It is also notable for releasing almost three months before Episode III hit theaters, so many kids first saw the end of that movie in a LEGO game. On GBA, in my case.
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
James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing
Jikkyou Powerful Major League
Kirby Air Ride
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker