Cubivore: Survival of the Fittest, known in Japan as Dōbutsu Banchō,[a] is an action-adventure video game developed by Saru Brunei and Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the GameCube.

This powerful tyrant and his gang of cronies have gorged themselves on the essence of the land, known in the game as "Wilderness", so much that they have absorbed some of it into themselves.

When facing another Cubivore, the player's job is to attack it, weaken it, and finally kill it by tearing off its limbs.

Because much of the game's emphasis is on attaining as many mutations as possible, the player will want to try to discover how to obtain certain colors in certain levels, rather than simply eating everything.

At certain points in the game, a Cubivore will face a boss it simply cannot beat, since it does not have enough limbs to attack it successfully.

Once the two have mated, the player is given the option of selecting from the pool of possible offspring (although many females may be willing to mate with the Cubivore, the number that give birth is random, unless the Cubivore has collected over 100 hearts for that cycle, at which point all females will give birth).

[1] It was first designed for the Nintendo 64 with the 64DD floppy drive peripheral, and then was converted to cartridge format by 2000 like so many others due to the commercial failure of the 64DD.

[2] In July 2000, IGN initially roughly translated the name as "something like Animal Thugs" with a first impression of bafflement: "[it is] probably the weirdest game to come out on the N64.

"[1] At Nintendo's Space World 2000 trade show in August 2000, IGN said the purpose was to make players "fight and eat their way to the top of the food chain".

Playing the demo for the first time, IGN said it had a great premise but "some serious hurdles if it wants to appeal to a mainstream audience".

"The actual gameplay is simple and fun, kind of in the line of the evolution classic E.V.O., but with a much more artsy approach.

"[2] A Cubivore appears as a collectible trophy named Alpha in 2001's Super Smash Bros. Melee, with factoids in the description and the game of origin listed as "future release".

The response from critics was mixed, and due to less than favorable sales, Nintendo later announced that it had no intentions to localize Animal Leader in other countries.

[12] Critics also found the game's sound effects and classical piano-based soundtrack to be somewhat charming, but noted that the music tended to become repetitive at times.