People still swear by this quirky controller, leading to Nintendo supporting it for 25 years and counting.
Luza Studios/Getty Images As the GameCube (GCN) turns 25 this year, there's no better testament to its legacy than the controller. Despite Nintendo experimenting with various input methods in the years since, every one of its ensuing home consoles has officially supported a GameCube pad. And the company has re-released it in new editions multiple times.
A combination of factors led to popularity long after the console left production. It was perfect for games designed for GameCube, became synonymous with one of Nintendo's biggest franchises, and its library was kept alive on future platforms. To this day, it's one of our top Nintendo Switch controllers .
It's not perfect — it has issues compared to the competition at the time as well as modern pads. Even though the design wasn't iterated on for future consoles like the PS2 and Xbox controllers were, it's still a delight to use. You should really give it a try if you never have. Thankfully, it's easy to do that today.
v74/Shutterstock From your first look at the GameCube controller, you'll notice it's not like other pads. Instead of the four-button diamond layout most controllers have, it has an oversized green A button, a tiny red B button, and two kidney-shaped X and Y buttons. This has a few advantages. For newcomers, they'll immediately infer that the A button is the most important, and it's easier to feel which button your finger is on without looking. Also, this layout enabled you to easily press A along with any other button.
The L and R buttons are analog, meaning they react to how much force you use instead of being a simple on/off switch. Lots of titles on the system took advantage of this. For instance, in Super Mario Sunshine , pressing the R button partway allows Mario to shoot water while walking around, while fully pressing it locks Mario in place while spraying. In the Super Mario 3D All-Stars Switch port, it doesn't feel the same using separate buttons for these actions on a Joy-Con or Pro Controller.
In contrast to most controllers' circular control stick gate (the "guard" that restricts a stick's movement), the GameCube's primary thumbstick has an octagonal gate, just like the N64 controller that preceded it. This makes it way easier to input specific directions accurately, which is vital for some of the console's top games. The Super Monkey Ball titles require precision movements to move around narrow stages, while Soulcalibur II takes advantage of these to easily differentiate between inputs for the directional attacks common in fighting games.
Leonel Calara/Shutterstock It's impossible to separate the legacy of the GameCube controller from the Super Smash Bros. series. Super Smash Bros. Melee was the best-selling title on the console, offering an excellent casual party game experience that makes good use of the console's four controller ports. However, it also spawned a massive competitive scene. Melee has all kinds of hidden mechanics (like wavedashing) that give it an extremely high skill ceiling. It's fast-paced, which makes competitive matches enjoyable to watch. And its character roster is (mostly) balanced to allow for a variety of approaches.
Melee 's sequel, Super Smash Bros. Brawl , was released for Wii in 2008. Since the Wii was backward-compatible with GCN discs and had four GameCube controller ports, players (competitive and otherwise) could…