Topic: Nintendo GameCube - Nintendo Classics

I'm surprised there isn't a topic about the GameCube games.

I'm mostly making this thread so I can sing Wind Waker's praises. I'm absolutely loving everything about it, even collecting the Triforce pieces isn't that bad. The graphics and art style are absolutely fantastic, even now and the world is a joy to explore.

I've been using the GameCube controller and it just feels right. I've not used one in years prior to get the Switch 2 and using one again takes me back to my childhood.

I'm really hoping that Starfox Adventures gets added at some point. I really want to experience it in wide-screen at 900p.

What GameCube games are you playing and what ones are you hoping to see?

It's great to see GC finally becoming available, it's one of my favorite Nintendo consoles but it's one of the consoles that's become more difficult to get and one who's majority of the library has been left in the dust

So far my favorite game on NSO is F-Zero and I love how all the upcoming games are all $100+ games

As for the games I want to see, the Viewtiful Joe games are the big ones, but I'd love to see Twilight Princess, Melee, Skies of Arcadia, MGS Twin Snakes, the Star Fox games, Eternal Darkness, and Mega Man X Command Mission

So far I've played Soul Calibur 2 (Cassandra is my favorite character to play as). I changed the display to 16:9, and made an adjustment to the controls, so kick is now mapped to the A button on the Pro Controller.

I totally agree, I hope we have Star Fox Adventure in the near future.

I'm seeing the US and European versions of the games displayed in the app. is anyone else?

@Kiff You can turn that off in the settings. First thing I did.

On-Topic: Soul Calibur 2 looks really, really good. I have been limping through the HD version (based on Europe build so no Japanese language) and I am very happy to switch over. Also means I can retire my OG gamecube disc.

@Megas75 F-Zero GX is fantastic. If I didn't know any better and someone told me it was an original Switch release I'd believe them because it looks that good.

@Bentleyma it really is graphically astonishing… even if playing it you can immediately see why.

It’s a niche super hard game. Personally I still think F-Zero X is the better game all round but some of that is down to the fact that I prefer the aggressive use of the craft as weapons. GX requires you to master racing lines to a much higher level.

GX rendered in this high a resolution though… maybe the most graphically impressive game of its generation.

How many years will it be before Nintendo allows us to hide the borders?

@Bentleyma
Love star fox adventures! One thing about gamecube games though. I don't think any of them were ever in widescreen. Sure star fox adventures did have a widescreen option in the settings but it wasn't true widescreen. Really it just takes the 4:3 image and stretches it. I've recently been playing it on my Wii and even when your TV is widescreen and the in game settings are set to widescreen it still doesn't look right sadly.

Glad you're one of the few like me who enjoyed the game. It kinda got alot of crap for not being the traditional shooter and not even starting out as a star fox game at all. Sure is a great Zelda clone though!

@StuTwo You can hide the borders by setting the game to widescreen and also turning off the button display.

@Truegamer79 I'm really hoping that if Star Fox Adventures gets added that I still enjoy it as much as I did when it first released. I think Soul Calibur II stretches when you switch it to wide-screen and I mostly think it holds up ok, so I'm hoping it's the same deal with Star Fox Adventures.

I wonder how GameCube NSO will impact Gamecube games that are getting remastered. We got a few on Switch 1. I hope they continue to remaster them on Switch 2.

I mean, it could be like a few of the remakes on Switch 1. We got SMRPG remade, so its not on NSO. Same with Advance Wars and Mario vs. DK probably being absent for the foreseeable future.

Makes me feel for that Pokemon Mystery Dungeon remake, since it probably stopped selling at all if Nintendo were ok putting the GBA version on NSO. So with all that in mind, I'd guess no to Metroid Prime but yes to Pikmin being on NSO. (Nintendo Classics, whatever)

In the past I’d have said there’s no chance. We’ve seen the Game Boy Link’s awakening on Switch with the remake on sale though.

I think the fact that GCN is only on S2 also opens up possibilities. I’ve still got a candle burning for WWHD to come to S1 (with an enhancement patch for S2). I think there’s still a market for both & they’ll still want to put low effort ports on to S1 for a while yet. Other games could be in a similar position.

Regardless of HD remasters, a fair amount of games have appeared on NSO after being able to be bought in some form previously — Link's Awakening, Mario 64, Mario Sunshine coming soon, the majority of the Sega Genesis NSO games, a few random snes and nes games.

Well, that's Wind Waker finished!

Took me 27 hours to beat. There's still a lot for me to do, so I'm probably going to keep playing it.

I'm excited to see what games Nintendo add next. Even though I've played a lot of them, I'm looking forward to the GameCube games nearly as much as new Switch 2 releases.

The GameCube games were what twisted my arm to buy a Switch 2, no lie.

It's still my favourite Nintendo console, and despite owning a couple of them and decent library of GC games, having them on Switch 2 with the new GameCube controller, save states, and button remapping had me sold. I know I can do all this on an emulator or whatever, but retiring my collection and having all these games on one platform is just super convenient to me.

I've collectively spent more time on the three initial GC games than any Switch 2 exclusives or 'Editions'. 😊

@Jack_Goetz Nice. I was excited to use my switch 2 for gamecube games (ready for PICKUP Friday, 10 days after I ordered it 😭), but I’m now saving up for Splatoon Raiders. Splatoon’s my favorite Nintendo franchise, so I’m willing to pay the (maybe 60, probably) 70 for it.

@pikachupikachup Ah yes! I love Splatoon as well. I'm really keen to see more from Raiders. A full on single-player game with Splatoon's mechanics sounds like a blast. 🙂

I'd say Melee and Double Dash are solid bets for remasters. They haven't been confirmed yet for NSO. Why have them as part of the subscription when Nintendo can put in a bit of effort and charge $30 a piece for them? There's a real chance they're being saved for the 25th anniversary of each (Melee in late 2026, Double Dash in late 2028).

I gave NSO is F-Zero a spin - fun!

But, i'm far too busy with Yakuza 0 at the moment for any Virtual Console stuff, especially now as it is a direct continuation of Switch 1's library.

Once releases for Switch II that interest me slow down a little, i'll dig back into VC again, and explore the Gamecube library as it expands.

If you still have the original Gamecube games then I think emulation is a great way to play Gamecube games. I've kept about 12 Gamecube games in my collection which I think of as licences to play the same games in emulators. Other Gamecube games I sold years ago. I bought a cheap mini pc from aliexpress with a Intel N100 chip, 12GB of DDR5 memory, 512GB of storage and it has decent CPU performance and about 300 Gflops of GPU power. It runs pretty much all Gamecube games fantastically except the Rogue Squadron games many of which you can run at 1080p with no issues. In fact even my Celeron laptop which only has a GPU of about 100 Gflops runs most Gamecube games at full speed. This little mini PC only has a official TDP of 6W but GMKtec have enabled 25W TDP maximum power allowed and its actively cooled.

The N100 produces 43 Dmips per mhz and its 4x3.4Ghz so about 585000 dmips. The Switch 2 has 8 ARM A78 cores at 1Ghz approx and from looking around the dmips varies from 7-12 per Mhz. The issue is the optimal fabrication for full performance is 5Nm but the Switch is on a mainly 10Nm process so I'm going to go with the lower end figure lets say 8 Dmips per mhz. That gives 8x8x1000 or 64000 dmips. Of course the Switch 2 has much greater GPU resources than the N100 but it shouldn't matter for Gamecube emulation. My point is emulation on other devices will still be far superior to Switch 2. Yes I understand Nintendo will spend time making sure every game works well but the current state of Gamecube emulators on PC is exceptionally good in compatibility and even humble entry level PC hardware is much stronger than Switch 2 in CPU performance. The N100 can actually emulate Nintendo Switch too surprisingly well however its not running the games as well as a Switch 2 of course which can run the ARM code natively and just has to use a graphic API to convert original Switch 1 graphic calls to the new Switch 2 hardware. Switch 1 games that directly access the graphics hardware I believe are the games that cannot run on Switch 2 without a dedicated patch.

It's so impressive how good Gamecube emulation is especially when you set the graphic levels to high resolutions with very good anti-aliasing etc. It's a joy to play those Gamecube games on emulators plus of course everything happens incredibly quickly like loading levels etc. You get to choose the controller that works best for you too.

@Don I think Prime 2 will happen (alongside Wii’s Prime 3) prior to Prime 4 but apart from that I think Gamecube content outside NSO will be limited to retro revivals in new games like what they did to Peach Beach and Dino Dino Jungle in World.