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Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

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Prince of Persia: The Sands Of Time U.S. Release Date: August 18,2003 The GameCube Archives Score: 7.2/10 I can't express just how nuts gaming media went for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time in late 2003. They fawned over the remake of the 1989 computer platformer like it was the second coming of Ocarina of Time , and even after that, they couldn't stop talking about it. "Why isn't The Sands of Time selling better?" was a frequent headline in the months after its release. Eventually, perhaps willed by the media blitz, the game made money and spawned two direct sequels and even a 2010 action film adaptation, starring sentient jar of mayonnaise, Jake Gyllenhaal, as the titular Middle Eastern royal. I filed the game back in my "maybe I'll play this one day" mental cabinet, and now that 20 years have passed, I've finally taken out the folder and played it. I'm not sure if that metaphor worked, but now I'm at least ready to answer t
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Super Mario Sunshine

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Super Mario Sunshine U.S. Release Date: August 26, 2002 The GameCube Archives Score: 9.2/10 If one game is emblematic of my lackluster initial run with the Nintendo GameCube, it's 2002's Super Mario Sunshine . While I did find isolated pleasures with games like Metroid Prime and Resident Evil 4 , most of my experience with the GameCube was more similar to my experience with Mario's 128-bit adventure. I halfheartedly bought the game the week that it was released, played it for a few weeks, was disappointed, and never played it again until...right now, 20 years later. Back in the fall of '02,  I was also experiencing the worst depressive period of my life, dealing with some heavy stuff a 20-year old shouldn't, and not really in the mood for a sunny, happy video game. Maybe that's why (the admittedly perfect) Metroid Prime did a much better job of capturing my interest a few months later. As for Sunshine , at the time it received some high critical praise,
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Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles

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Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles U.S. Release Date: February 9, 2004 The GameCube Archives Score: 6.0/10 In what I find ironic, I never finished a Final Fantasy game before I beat Crystal Chronicles a few days ago for this review. I say this as someone who has been around for...quite awhile. I'll never forget playing the first Final Fantasy for NES at a friend's house--my first RPG experience--and being completely baffled. I picked up Final Fantasy VI in a mass SNES purchase, played through the first hour, thought it was cool, and never went back to it. For reference, Chrono Trigger is my favorite video game of all time. FFVI should have immediately hooked me. Pictured: the opening menu for not Chrono Trigger. But that's not all. PS1 era? I made it eight hours into FF9 , then never went back. I played FF8 for 12 hours and then stopped! At some
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