Fire Emblem has grown into a staple of Nintendo’s first-party line up, but it wasn’t always that way. Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance was the first home console Fire Emblem game to ever be released outside of Japan, and frankly, the series languished for a while. That’s not because of the game quality though, as Path of Radiance was an excellent story, and Ike has become a fan-favorite character in a franchise with dozens to choose from. That’s part of the reason why this can cost up to $300.

Even hardcore Gamecube fans might be totally unaware of this one. Ribbit King is a golf game – kind of – where you launch frogs across a course. They call it Frolf. Ribbit King wasn’t actually particularly well-received upon launch, and the strange concept along with visuals probably didn’t tempt anyone into buying it when they saw it sat on store shelves either. As a result, it has quickly become one of the rarer Gamecube games, fetching $250 as long as it has the box, game, and manual intact.

Gotcha Force is an arena fighter that flew well under the radar when it launched. Developed by Capcom exclusively for the Nintendo Gamecube, Gotcha Force includes mechs, shooting, fighting, and an incredibly high price tag if you’re trying to buy the game nearly two decades late. Gotcha Force has a cult following, and it’ll remain a cult following as long as this game has a price tag as high as $700 just for the game in the box – not even new.

Chibi-Robo is a stone-cold classic and underappreciated gem. You explore a large house while being the size of a rat – only you’re a house-cleaning robot, tasked with climbing onto tables, drawers, and kitchen countertops in order to clean the place up. The platforming adventure is satisfying and exciting, but Chibi-Robo gets even better once you start uncovering the dark secrets hiding underneath the surface of the house, and the pain tearing their family apart. Oh, there are also aliens, for some reason. Chibi-Robo is going to cost you over $250 if you want to play it now.

The Dreamcast classic Skies of Arcadia was given a new lease on life on the Nintendo Gamecube, and it was excellent. While it already looked a tiny bit old hat compared to modern Gamecube games, Skies of Arcadia was still an excellent JRPG with a truly fascinating world. If you want to play the expanded Gamecube version now though, you’ll need to cough up almost $200 for a decent copy.

This is, actually, barely a game. Pokémon Box was a simple utility that allowed you to store your third-generation GBA Pokémon on your Gamecube memory card. You could simply transfer your hoards of monsters to Pokémon Box and keep them there until it’s time to transfer them elsewhere – such is the life of an avid collector. This tool isn’t needed for anything in particular in the modern-day, but it’s a rare piece of Pokémon history, which means it can cost $1,000 for the disc alone. Sorry, let us repeat that: $1,000 for just the disc.

This one is much rarer in PAL regions, but Mario Party 7 is still a surprisingly expensive game, and that’s because of the Gamecube Microphone peripheral you needed to play. Finding a copy of the game bundled with that microphone is difficult and much more costly now, and a copy of the game with a mic can cost £200 in the UK. Yikes.

Another game you may never have heard of, and understandably so. Gadget Racers is a simple racing game that you can buy cheaply for the PS2, but in PAL regions it is, for some reason, one of the very most expensive Gamecube games, with second-hand store CEX attempting to sell copies for £375 each – if they had any. The fact that no punters are willing to part with their copy for that money means that this is an exceedingly rare title, despite not being particularly interesting.

Not too rare, Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door certainly isn’t the most expensive game on this list, but it is one of the best. This is easily the peak of the Paper Mario series, taking Mario on a wild and lengthy adventure through a brand new world filled with gangster piantas and surly bob-omb sailors. Expect copies of this to cost more than $100 – but honestly, that might be worth it for a game this good.

This is another game that isn’t actually too expensive compared to many of the games in this list we’ve mentioned, but it sure is worth talking about. Silicon Knights’ complete remake of the first Metal Gear Solid game is a revelation, bringing the title up the date with the visual style of Metal Gear Solid 2. There are a few quirks that fans of the series dislike here, but if you want the best-looking version of the first and most iconic game in the Metal Gear Solid subseries, then this is a must-play. Though it’s still going to set you back at least $130.

Written by Dave Aubrey on behalf of GLHF.