Dolphin’s library is vast and extravagant, so we’ve split this article into two parts to help cover both Gamecube and Wii. This is the Gamecube portion, so be sure to check out what we recommend on the Wii as well! 

Cubivore 

I love the weirder side of the Gamecube and I think Cubivore, a game about eating other animals for survival is one of the better examples out there. It’s a shame this game has been confined to the Gamecube forever, but now we can play perfectly at higher resolutions. 

I’m recommending this because it is just downright weird. It isn’t the best playing game in the world, but it’s fun enough as a curiosity and bizarre enough to keep you going throughout the entire game’s not too long run time. 

Taking the role of a creature, you go about eating others to gobble up their parts, take their moves and then continue until you’ve hit some sort of goal. The look, feel and overall dark humour about the game is something you rarely see anymore outside of independent games and I just think more people should at least see what it is about. 

Wario World

Yes, the big man, Wario, had his own 3D adventure game with all the nice eccentricities of a Nintendo game of 2003. I have a soft spot for Wario and always have, but Wario World is something that I don’t think will ever happen again. 

It’s a true 3D platformer with combat, with Wario’s goal of being this grotesque anti-hero who just wants as much cash as he can humanly have in his back pocket. Wario’s little jiggle run as he navigates the different areas, along with all the grim noises that he makes, just fill the air with such personality that — and with much hindsight — I think I now consider this better than the Mario entries on Gamecube. 

Nintendo were all about trying something new on this console and if I’m honest, not having a Wario World 2 at any point and a total abandonment of the Wario Land series since the Gameboy Advance’s 4 is a crying shame. 

There are few games that have the same energy as Wario World, and I insist you check it out. 

The Legend of Zelda: The Four Swords Adventures

What? A Zelda game? On a list predominantly crowded by lesser known games? Well, The Four Swords Adventures is a different take on the original Link to the Past and uses multiplayer to have each person chaotically working together to bring down the evil Vaati. 

Because Dolphin supports Netplay and has built in mGBA (a Gameboy Advance emulator) straight into the program now, it makes playing this unique multiplayer take on Zelda a cinch. Yes, it’s one of those weirder Gamecube games that requires multiplayer excursions to have each player own a Gameboy Advance, the Link Cable needed to connect it all together and then get together around a singular console to play what is essentially a remix on the original Link to the Past game. 

However it is an utterly fascinating experiment and a complete egotistical project from Nintendo, one which envisions a world in which everyone owns all four components to play this game, instead of using the four Gamecube controllers. The game does offer different bits of information on the personal screen and weirdly, is a cool prototype for the eventual 3DS spiritual sequel, but it has never really been seen since. 

Bring it back! The 2D effects pulled in from Wind Waker looked so cool under the gloomy world of Link to the Past and the game was actually rather challenging if you were solo. 

Or cooperative. It’s very easy to lose friends in it. 

Chibi Robo

Inexcusably cute, absolutely joyous to be in and in clear need of more attention, Chibi Robo is one of those games you have to play to really get what I’m talking about. 

As Chibi Robo, you’ll go about and do your chores for the family, eventually learning more about them and the inhabitants of the house, like all the toys. It’s part time management, puzzle solver and cuteness overload. 

If you ever enjoyed those levels back in Unreal, Quake or Team Fortress 2 days of the super large house arenas, you’ll find this to be a joy to be in. 

The Chibi Robo series has had a total of three entries in it and I just thoroughly want to encourage everyone to see what I’m talking about. They’re so relaxing to be in, even with the various managements you have to consider, but also weirdly unique for games that are eventually, once you get past everything, your very standard adventure platforming game from the mid-00s. 

Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat

It doesn’t matter if you have the right controller (the DK Bongos rule), map the buttons to a few different keys on your keyboard and the claps to your space bar and I think you might be good to go. 

Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat isn’t just a game that hinges on its gimmick, it makes the gimmick such a major part of the platforming experience that I don’t think many games even come close to making something so ridiculous work in such a good way. 

Timing is everything, with ninja monkeys, raging robot elephants and a slew of great bosses to take on in fist fights all coming for you. The platforming is chaotic in the best way, with wonderful style choices throughout to really make it one on its own amongst the rest of Nintendo’s library.

While the bongos might have come from some half-baked idea of a rhythm game, they shine here if you can find some to hook up to your PC for some good old fashioned fun. 

Dolphin’s library is vast and extravagant, so we’ve split this article into two parts to help cover both Gamecube and Wii. This is the Wii portion, so be sure to check out what we recommend on the Gamecube as well! 

Eledees/Elebits

Once you’ve tinkered with the bindings for the controller to a mouse or even got your Wii Remotes straight up connected via Bluetooth, Eledees/Elebits is one of the more fun point-at-the-screen games on the Wii.

A light gun game in the sense of it requiring you to point and shoot, you can wreck whole rooms with semi-realistic physics, hunt through the various levels for the little critters hiding everywhere and eventually, as I did, get way too wrapped up in the nuances of the game’s score and progression. 

This is one of those buried classics on the Wii, as it came out at an awkward time where everyone was so focused on getting it out for Christmas with a copy of Wii Sports, that I think it just got lost in the mix. 

But the game is genuinely good fun with a friend and playing it together as you turn entire rooms upside down to look for these things is something that the Wii actually rarely ever did. 

Kororinpa 

Another launch window game, Kororinpa is a Marble Madness styled game that features cute critters to roll around and an infuriating level design. You’ll probably be best trying to map a controller with a gyroscope or something along those lines to get the most out of it and a Wii Remote is always recommended over everything else. 

Kororinpa is addicting in that it isn’t too long, but getting ahold of levels to perfection is impossibly anger inducing - in the best way! 

Every time you fail you know that you can do it. It’s your fault. No it’s the controller’s fault. No it’s yours again. 

Whatever the case may be, this is perfect for a Dolphin emulation in 4K, especially if you can get the game running at 60fps, rather than the limited 30 on the original console. 

Wario Land Shake It!!

The Wario Land series is one of my favourites. Both excellent puzzle platformers with 2 and 3, removing death from the games, to the original’s gall to try something wildly new with a character only just introduced in a prior Mario game. 4 however is where Wario finally got that incredible personality he’s known for, with a game so far out there and one of the best looking game on the Gameboy Advance, it’s a serious contender for one of my favourite games of all time. 

Which is why Shake It!! needs more love. These handcrafted 2D animations, all sublimely put together in a way that I think it might have been Cuphead to usurp it for animation since it released. 

It might be your typical Wario affair, with a lot of bashing into enemies and ridiculous scenarios, but it is genuinely an enjoyable game that will look great on a great big screen at a resolution it was never meant to be seen at. 

Kirby’s Epic Yarn

Laid back fun is never something to snub your nose at, especially when it looks this good.

Kirby’s Epic Yarn is such a wonderful little game, with its easiness nothing to be scared of, as it can become a child’s favourite game - especially in two player modes. 

The whole world is made from this fabric, with realistic and expected effects when you for instance, head under the trees for treasure and you can see the little lump of Kirby fumbling around. 

It might not feature a lot of Kirby’s more traditional gameplay attributes, like taking and copying powers, but it does its own thing so well that it really stops being an issue more than five minutes in. 

It is also impossibly cute, egregiously so. Like, the game should be arrested for being like this. 

Super Paper Mario 

A little well known out of everything on this list, Super Paper Mario is a bit different to the rest of the Paper Mario games, ditching a lot of the RPG mechanics in favour of the more platforming centric ones, but it still features a funny story and some twists in the formula for an overall comedic, odd game. 

This game focuses on the ‘paper’ aspect, by allowing you to twist the world into a 3D version, meaning that ol’ Paper Mario can begin to slot into different places he wouldn’t usually be able to. 

While the platforming isn’t the greatest Mario has seen, it is very different once you begin to morph in the various RPG elements, offering something new for those burnt out on the constant Goomba stomping. 

Super Paper Mario’s script is where it really shines, as it is genuinely funny - a lot of these Mario offshoots actually are - and its fourth-wall breaking is never not going to get my sides hurting. 

However, most of the time, it seems to be used for gaming and building little handhelds, but what can it really do? Can it actually play much outside of 1990s? Well, sort of. A little. It can play Gameboy Advance games and that's about your lot.

Without overclocking the onboard ARM chip, it's a fairly limited device, but limitations usually breed the best innovations and I find that having a lack of games to choose from can help me figure out what to play next. So it's like an innovation if I just didn't have my pick of grey-area acquired games.

Either way, you can use the following emulators on the Raspberry Pi Zero running RetroPie:

As you can see, the Pi Zero makes for a great emulator for handheld devices but stumbles at anything more than 3D for the most part. As long as you stay within the 2D range and the older consoles (or at most, 32-bits like a GBA), you should be fine and dandy without having to do any other tinkering.

This is why you'll see Pi Zeroes in a lot of portable projects and such, as you'll rarely need the power of the Pi 4 or something similar to recreate handheld memories.

The Raspberry Pi is incredibly fun to tinker with, which is why we're currently pushing with multiple projects across the board. Be sure to keep tabs on our dedicated hub for more projects like this in the future!