Twenty-five years. That's how long it's been since the GameCube arrived, and I'll tell you, typing that number made my wrists ache a little. Engadget just published a lovely retrospective on the GameCube games we still love, and it sent me right back to 2001, when my living room had a chunky silver TV and a console shaped like a tiny purple purse.

That little handle on the back. Do you remember it? Nintendo genuinely expected people to carry the thing to friends' houses, and you know what, we did. It weighed about as much as a bag of sugar and survived being lugged around in backpacks in a way no gadget today would tolerate. I've dropped phones that cost a thousand dollars and shattered on carpet. The GameCube could've been kicked down a flight of stairs and asked for more.

The year 2001 was a crowded one for gaming. The PlayStation 2 was already a juggernaut, Microsoft was launching the original Xbox, and Sega was bowing out of consoles entirely. And in the middle of all that, Nintendo shipped a machine with those absurdly cute little mini-discs, the ones that were barely three inches across. Everyone thought the lack of DVD playback was a fatal mistake. It wasn't. People bought the GameCube to play Nintendo games, and that was that.

And what games. Super Smash Bros. Melee alone probably justified the purchase for half the families I knew. My granddaughter Jess would roll her eyes at this, but I watched kids in this house play Melee for entire snow days, arguing about whether Fox was overpowered. (He was.) Then there was Metroid Prime, which took a series my generation knew as a side-scroller and turned it into something you could get lost in for weeks. Wind Waker got mocked at first for its cartoon look, and now it's the one everybody wants remastered. Funny how that goes.

Luigi's Mansion deserves its own paragraph, so here it is. A launch game where Mario's scared brother vacuums ghosts in a haunted house. On paper it sounds like Nintendo had lost the plot. In practice it was charming, funny, and just the right length, which is a compliment I don't hand out often anymore.

What strikes me looking back is how well these games hold up. My colleague Marcus could explain exactly why, something about the art direction not depending on the raw horsepower of the era, but I just call it good design. Cartoon styles age like wine, and attempts at realism age like milk. That's why Wind Waker still looks gorgeous in 2026 while some of the gritty shooters from that same year look like they were rendered through a screen door.

The GameCube itself wasn't a sales champion. It sold around 21 million units, well behind the PlayStation 2. But sales and love are different currencies, and the GameCube is rich in the second one. The controller, with that big green A button, is still considered one of the most comfortable ever made. People mod them onto modern consoles. You don't do that for something you merely tolerated.

If you still have one in a closet somewhere, dig it out. The discs are cheap at used-game shops, the hardware is bulletproof, and there's a good chance it still works. And if you've got a Switch, many of the classics have been quietly reappearing there anyway.

I remember when 1GB of storage was unthinkable, and now I'm nostalgic for a console that couldn't even play a DVD. Time is strange. But some things stay true: good games are good games, and the little purple box was full of them. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a sudden urge to go vacuum some ghosts.