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2. Super Monkey Ball
GameCube launched with an odd collection of games. Mario was literally kidnapped and Super Smash Bros. Melee wouldn’t arrive until nearly a month after the console’s debut. Fortunately, GameCube owners were blessed with a wonderful multiplayer game to tide them over in the meantime. Sega’s Super Monkey Ball mainly focused on the task of guiding Aiai and his monkey pals to each goal point without falling off the platform, but it was the title’s bevy of party games that captured the interest of players. Options like Monkey Target, Monkey Race, and Monkey Bowling (to name but a few) were strong highlights, and resulted in Super Monkey Ball becoming a full-fledged franchise for Sega.
Super Monkey Ball has been a wonderful success for Sega. The game proved popular enough to inspire so many sequels that Aiai and his monkey compatriots have appeared in some form on every Nintendo system since, including Game Boy Advance, Wii, DS, and 3DS. While Wii U does not have a Super Monkey Ball title just yet, Aiai is playable alongside Vyse in Sega and All-Stars Racing Transformed.
Glad to see Super Monkey Ball so high on the list. (Although I prefer the second one) It’s a shame that Amusement Vision isn’t around anymore, because I really enjoyed what they were doing on the GameCube.
Great list. All are worthy of inclusion. I’m particularly glad to see Skies of Arcadia Legends get some love; it’s a very good RPG and filled a massive hole in the Cube library at the time of its release.
I have long thought Baten Kaitos Origins to be the best of the Cube RPGs — better than Symphonia, better than Arcadia. It gets little love because it was released so late and sold in very few quantities. Even in my own list I left it off, mostly because Symphonia was a more groundbreaking and important RPG, and because its combat was pure awesome.