I think I was a little dramatic as a child (I guess a lot of us were though). I'd been absolutely thrilled with our PS2, didn't feel like I was missing too much not having a Gamecube. I thought Luigi's Mansion was cute when playing a store demo, but didn't exactly rush out and buy it. When I first played Melee at a friend's house though, I was unbelievably hyped up by it. I couldn't believe how smooth it looked and felt compared to the N64 game, and the humongous expansion in roster. Not to mention adventure and all-star modes. I remember going home after playing it and just feeling crushed that I couldn't own it and play it myself. I was probably morose about it for several days.

A whole video game console wasn't exactly something I could purchase myself as a 9 year old, it usually had to be a Christmas or birthday gift. I think I begged for a Gamecube on my following birthday, but since we'd just gotten a PS2 for Christmas my parents said we had to hold off. Fortunately the following year my birthday was close to Wind Waker's NA release, and there was a console bundle my parents got for me. I loved that game too, but I just had to buy Melee as soon as I could, and I played the absolute hell out of it.

I certainly don't think I appreciated at the time how tight the controls were in this game, and how much potential it would go on to have as a competitive game. I happily moved onto Brawl when that came out, but around the time of Smash 4 I remember breaking out Melee again to play with roommates at the time and I'd forgotten just how well it holds up. I think I've probably played Brawl the most, and I really like Ultimate for just how expansive and varied it is, but Melee is obviously tough to beat for best in the series.

I was a pretty casual Simpsons fan when this came out, always made me bust up when I did watch it though. Not sure why we bought this exactly, I may have just tried a demo at a store and come away liking it (I'd also never played Crazy Taxi). Anyway, it's pretty fun, the main novelty is seeing the geography of Springfield and where they decided to place things relative to one another. The character voice lines are funny, and I got pretty good at a couple of the stages. Variety in cars (from the show) was also cool.

It absolutely blew my mind when we bought this and I realized it was a turn-based Harry Potter RPG. I must have played the story of this over and over, I thought it was so cool. Exploring the castle and grounds felt great (especially the secret passages), collecting the cards and optional spells was a treat, and I appreciated how much of the story they were able to fit in. It was often unclear at first what spells worked best on what enemies, but I eventually learned the patterns. The memory test in Charms class always drove me up the wall a bit, and a couple boss fights felt really punishing (especially the last one). But this is a pretty awesome GBC RPG