I Never Felt True Nostalgia Until I Played GameCube On Switch 2

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I still remember the day I got my GameCube. It wasn’t the launch day, because I remember getting Super Smash Bros. Melee alongside it, which to my knowledge released a few weeks after the console itself in the UK.

Oh gosh, I was so excited though! I pored over early issues of NGC in the weeks leading up to The Big Day (somehow, there were already about six or seven issues before the console even released), perhaps most notably while on a family holiday in Cyprus, clutching the magazine while my Mum tried to get me to focus on the sights and sounds of the Limassol coastline. No Mum… I’m reading about Link’s Melee moveset for the hundredth time, thanks.

The day I actually got the GameCube felt so magical; previously, my brother’s Mega Drive and PS1 had been passed down to me while he moved onto the next big thing, and I had already owned a Game Boy Color by this point thanks to the Pokémon boom, but the GameCube was the first home console that I could truly call my own. It was mine. My precious.

The three or four years following were some of the most memorable of my life; really up until the release of the Wii, if I’m honest. And it’s because the GameCube launched right when I was starting to find my feet at high school, and so the friendships I cultivated during that time linked directly with my experience with the console.

GameCube 2 — *Image: Nintendo Life / Nintendo*

I had two ‘best friends’, I guess you could call them, and they both owned their own GameCubes and were just about as passionate as I was about Nintendo’s adorable little purple box – perhaps more so, actually. So we played multiplayer as often as we could, and when we weren’t playing together, we’d be talking about our own experiences in between classes (and yes, probably during classes too).

“How does Link control?” is an actual question I specifically remember asking one of my friends after he’d got his hands on The Wind Waker six or seven hours before me. He got his delivery before school started that day, and I had to wait until I got home the same evening. Ridiculous! But it was these kinds of conversations that really got me through high school. I’ll never forget it.

Life goes on, of course, and for reasons I can’t quite recall, I had to get rid of my GameCube and accompanying games. High school and college ended, and so my friends and I went our separate ways when university hit, chasing our own visions of what adulthood might look like. Outside of a few brief chance encounters in the years since, we’d pretty much remained apart for nearly 20 years.

However, after another encounter a couple of years back, I’ve reconnected with those same two friends I’d spent so much time with during high school. Now, on a near-weekly basis, we get together at a local micro pub, knock back a couple of pints, munch on some pork scratchings, and spend each Saturday evening enjoying rousing discussions about current affairs, gaming, and of course, our time together at high school.

The best thing about these little get-togethers is the joint realisation that none of us has really changed. Sure, we’ve changed in the obvious sense that we’re now grown up with lots of different responsibilities and whatnot, but we still all love gaming, and it genuinely felt like our time apart after high school just never happened. It was like we were right back in 2002, albeit without the constant threat of bullies and the monotonous homework. I had a real rough time in 2023 for reasons I won’t go into here, and honestly, reconnecting with my two best friends again saved me.

Fast forward to 2025, and our conversations frequently involve the Switch 2. We’d go over our hopes for the console, rumours and speculation, along with any information that Nintendo itself had officially announced. Naturally, when the big Direct happened at the start of April and included confirmation that GameCube games would be making a comeback, this became a hot topic for the three of us. Not only was the console that effectively cemented our friendships back in 2002 suddenly a thing again, but the fact that it was happening now, after so many years of us being apart, felt remarkably significant.

So I have to admit, booting up the GameCube app on Switch 2 for the first time, official wireless GameCube controller at hand, I felt a little bit emotional. I’ve had that nostalgic feeling plenty of times – haven’t we all?– but nothing quite like this. Hauling myself down that ladder and taking my first steps across Outset Island in The Wind Waker immediately brought back memories of that ridiculous question I’d asked my friend all those years back.

But instead of it festering in the back of my mind, I know I can bring it up with the exact same friend at the pub, and I know it’ll lead to a dozen other GameCube memories and unrestrained belly laughs. That’s just how it is. And it’s the same with F-Zero GX and SoulCalibur II: all three games played a huge part in our teenage years, and so they all hold their own respective treasure troves of memories within.

There is, however, one thing missing right now. The game that started it all, the one I poured over for countless hours in NGC magazines, and the one I played the first time I booted up my GameCube in 2002: Super Smash Bros. Melee.

It’s yet to be confirmed for Nintendo Switch Online, but if/when it does, I imagine our nights out at the pub will turn into impromptu Melee tournaments. And I can’t wait.