GameCube What made the Gamecube appealing to you?

Am I going to be painfully honest? It's because I usually purchase every majour system Nintendo comes out with. They're the only company I can rely obn to fully dedicate time to the their own games in conjunction with their system. They rarely disappoint.
 
I never owned a GameCube myself until many years after it came out, but as a kid I remember always going over to me friends house to play Melee. It was always a blast! The only other GameCube games I really touched were Pokemon and Luigi's Mansion which are awesome as well. That aside, if it wasn't for melee I probably would have shown no interest whatsoever in the GameCube.
 
I love the gamecube and I'm sad that it didn't become an evolving console like the Playstation.
I loved many games on the GC like Mario Strikers, Mario Party, FF:Crystal Chronicles and others.
The only thing I wasn't in love with was the controller.

It is, generally speaking, a wonderful console. A pity it didn't live on to this day.
 
I was always a Nintendohead. I always had a Nintendo and some other system (Super Nintendo and Genesis, Nintendo 64 and Playstation, GameCube and Dreamcast) so that was a big part of it. I also like how it was super light and I can just pick it up and take to my friend's house without even thinking about it much. I can remember playing Metroid Prime around Christmas time. It was literally all I did.
 
There were two factors that made the GameCube appealing to me. The first being a Nintendo product. My brother and I were naturally Nintendo children that often played the Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64. GameCube was another addition to our collection. The second factor was that it was oddly shaped. We fell in love with how it looked and what kind of discs it needed. It was definitely considered "unique" during it's popular time.
 
I wanted to get a Gamecube for a few reasons. The first was because of Super Mario Sunshine. I am a fan of the Mario games and I was hoping that this was just an updated version of Mario 64 (boy was I mistaken). I loved that you could get a bundle with the game I wanted. The second reason was that I because I am such a fan of Nintendo systems, I felt that I needed to upgrade to the latest console. The final reason was because the game discs were so small that I knew I needed to get the console just so I could show off the little games.
 
The be blunt, playstation and xbox were really too mainstream. Fewer people I knew had the consoles for Nintendo anymore, and I was certain they only got better with time. So I asked for it for a christmas present. I got RE:4 and Baten Kaitos along with Tales of Symphonia. Good Xmas.
 
Well, I liked the design of the console when it was first announced. I thought it was incredibly cool that Nintendo developed a console that was more powerful than the PS2 but had a far more compact footprint. The controller was also well-designed and extremely comfortable, although that d-pad and some of the button positioning could be a bit better. Ultimately, it was about the games: Super Mario Sunshine, Ikaruga, Killer 7, Resident Evil 4 and F-Zero GX made the console worth owning.
 
The titles available on it! Wind Waker, Metroid Prime 1 & 2, Resi 4, Metal Gear, Smash Bros Melee (which I still wholeheartedly believe is the best version), and Tales of Symphonia which is not really a widely loved title but it holds a very special place for me.

Then you had some of the more oddball type setups that were still awesome. Zelda: Four Swords Adventures needed the GBA/GCN cable thing, but if you had the setup and at least one friend, it was a BLAST. Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat once again required ridiculous peripherals but if you had them it was an incredibly fun and unique experience. Luigi's Mansion, it was released at launch and was the closest thing we got to a Mario game at launch, which was a first and people didn't like, but it was an incredibly fun game that was new and interesting, albeit a bit short.

Then Super Mario Sunshine showed up later, and we finally had a Mario game (other than Mario Party). It was all about Mario cleaning up graffiti and it was somehow awesome. Animal Crossing was a game in which you essentially did nothing and it was somehow one of the most addictive and satisfying games I've ever played. Pikmin 1 & 2, definitely the most comfortable interpretation of an RTS I've encountered on a console. Plus the game is just so cute and horrifying. You harvest creatures and use them to kill bigger creatures and then use the corpses to produce more adorable little vicious Pikmin. How can you not love that?
 
Well when you think back, the fact that it was a cube itself was probably the main factor for me. I probably would have gotten it regardless just because it was the step up and I absolutely loved my Nintendo 64, but seeing it and the design just secured a purchase for me. It was pretty revolutionary back then, but now looking back it did not really do all that much. Good times, though, and thanks for sharing.
 
I think what drew me to it was the way it looked and the game selection. Back then the best console on the market was a Nintendo and anything just a bad imitation of it.
 
I personally think that it caught my attention because of the controllers and also the whole cube itself, it was such a nice and good looking device back in the days when it first got released. I never bought it, but my cousins had one of those and it was really cool.
 
Honestly not much. Sure some games I love on it but as a console..meh. Xbox was my fave console that generation (Dreamcast aside)
 
The fact that it was my main video game console that I had from the time I was 7-12.
 
For me it was a diffrent case because I was six and only played some pc games like zoo tycoon and rayman 2 the great escape.

For me during that time it was probably the games rather then the console itself. So seeing games like mario sunshine, spongebob, Spyro and rayman were awesome between the age of 6 till 10.

But right now it is for me the comfortable gameplay, on other gaming-consoles the controllers make it hard for me to play if my hands start to hurt after 40 minutes. It is just the perfect controller for my hands, not too small nor too big. Only dislike the click of the L and R-button when I play games with an extremely fast gameplay.

The second reason why it is appealing for me? The variety of games. There are always a few games on the gamecube for everyone. Also there are some games available on the gamecube that are also on other consoles, wich makes it great for me because the controller-aspect again.

The next thing that apeals to me is how long a gamecube works. Personally I clean my gamecube every week and I have no problems with the hardware of the gamecube. Nor do I have with the software of the gamecube, it is simple build and that is what makes it works for so long. As some of you guys might know, buying older secondhanded games sometimes can be quite expensive and it is just a big pluse size if your console also last longer.
 
@FaithofBlood for me, it was the sheer fun of the games. Wind Waker, Sunshine and Double Dash will forever be my favorite games ever. They were just fun, and yes, the Wavebird controller was very comfortable and easy to use. Good fun times
 
There's a lot I like about the GameCube. To this day, the controller is still one of my all-time favorites. I actually refuse to play Smash on WiiU without it. I have to say it, though, the D-Pad was absolutely awful. Thankfully, it wasn't needed very often. The system itself was neat, too. The purple color was pretty rad and I liked the small size with the handle, making it easy to carry to friend's houses to play Melee... not to mention the four controller ports. The GBA player was something else I really loved, as well as linking certain GBA games to GameCube games for secret unlocks, such as getting the Fusion Suit in Metroid Prime or unlocking the original NES version of Metroid - that was awesome.

When I got my GameCube I got it with Super Mario Sunshine and Metroid Prime. Those two games together had me in gaming bliss. A lot of people don't care much for Sunshine but I really enjoyed it. Soul Calibur was one of my favorite Dreamcast games so, naturally, I put an insane amount of time into SC2 on the GameCube, which, also had Link as a playable character and thus making it all the better.

The GameCube era was also my introduction to one of my favorite things in life: Smash Bros. Ah, the memories of when I first got into that game and the long, frustration road of getting good at it...

One genre the system was really lacking in was RPGs. Although, the few that were on it were fantastic. Twilight Princess (though I technically never played the GCN version since I got it at the launch of the Wii), Wind Waker, Baten Kaitos, Paper Mario, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance... Shockingly, Skies of Arcadia and Phantasy Star Online saw ports to the 'Cube, though I never did pick them up since I already had the Dreamcast versions (perhaps now would be a good time to replay Skies, on a Nintendo system this time. Hmm)

Two of my favorite games ever got remakes on the GameCube, which are Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil. While I didn't care much for the remixed music of MGS: Twin Snakes, the better graphics and new gameplay mechanics made it worthwhile. And that RE remake was nothing short of a masterpiece.

Another advantage the console had was that, due to a deal between Nintendo and Capcom, Resident Evil 4 and Zero were exclusive to the GameCube at launch and for a long time after. PS2 didn't get ports of those games for years, IIRC. And with RE4 arguably being the best installment in the series, that was huge at the time.

Something else I was super excited about during the GameCube's heyday was that we were getting home-console Pokemon games for the system. I was crazy hype for Colosseum before it came out. And while I did enjoy the game, it was Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness that I truly loved. Something about that game really got me. The environments, characters, music... I thought it was great, though it's not highly regarded as one of the better Pokemon games. I sure put a lot of time into it and it's still to this day one of my favorites in the franchise. On a side note, I seriously can't wait for the first Pokemon game to come to Switch!

Other honorable mentions:

Animal Crossing
Viewtiful Joe
Battalion Wars
Pikmin 2
Beyond Good & Evil
Wave Race: Blue Storm
F-Zero GX
Luigi's Mansion
 
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Being a young child probably had something to do with it (I was 7 when it came out, and it was my main console throughout my childhood). But to this day it remains my favorite Nintendo console. Super Smash Bros. Melee (my favorite in the series) as well as Animal Crossing, Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, F-Zero GX, Super Mario Sunshine and many other games called the GameCube home.
 
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