In recent years, the Wii has been maligned for being called the waggle machine. You shake the Wii remote as a motion controller to swing Link’s sword in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess or return the ball in a game of tennis with a virtual racquet. For some reason, however, the Wii featured some of my favourite memories as a gamer, despite how much anguish it gets from the online community.

The Wii turns 20 this year. Crazy, right? It’s a special system, even if it sometimes catered too much to a casual audience. Mostly every Nintendo experience felt premium. The music was always on point. When you first boot up the Wii, it welcomes you with calming synthesised percussion and plenty of TV-like channels to choose from. It feels thematically correct as you use a remote-shaped controller with the console.

As you start each game or app, there’s usually a cool sound effect or musical introduction that hypes you up for the experience. Super Smash Bros. Brawl gives you an exciting booting-up sound for the action ahead, while Wii Sports gives a cheery song that welcomes you to the party.

Wii Sports is the most approachable and nostalgic game of the Wii. It is so approachable in fact, that many care homes have a Wii available to play with, just for this game. “The console has helped a great deal with some residents who, I think, missed their former ability to take part in sports,” said care home manager Anne Smith to Community Care. With the Wii, they can recapture some of that ability, and it’s brought back some of their competitive spirit.”

It has tennis, boxing, golf, baseball, and bowling. Each one of them have accessible controls, only needing natural movements and a few button presses to play. I remember a Christmas in Ireland with my family, playing bowling and having a wonderful time, laughing at each other whenever someone messed up and cheering if another got a strike. The cute visuals of everyone’s Mii mixed with the iconic music by Kazumi Totaka helped make the game so reminiscent in our minds.

On launch day, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was also released. It brought a darker mood to the series and has left an impression on me ever since. Zant, while not a particularly charismatic villain, had a captivating design. The Twilit portals really stand out in the environment. The motion controls added to the experience, letting you strike foes with a slash of the Wii remote and then blocking with the Nunchuk acting as the shield. Aiming the arrow with the motion controls was also fun to operate. I remember my Dad and I playing through the game together, getting enraptured in this dark world.

The music of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is so enchanting. Tension built as Midna’s Lament played as you tried to save your companion.

The Wii came at just the right time for me in my early teenage years. I remember grinning from ear to ear shooting plungers at the monster rabbits in Rayman Raving Rabbids, and looking at the screen in awe as Mario flies through space in Super Mario Galaxy. Later on, I jumped up and down in joy as I leased my first Kamehameha in the Budokai Tenkaichi games with the Wii remote and nunchuk motion controls.

Wii Fit is also a wonderful memory, despite not helping me lose a lot of weight in the long run. Just like Wii Sports, it has some nostalgic music for me. The theme is upbeat and fit the fitness theme like a glove. The Wii Balance Board was an interesting accessory as it relied on your body weight. You can move to the left and right, hitting footballs with your head or a hula hoop. The gameplay was pretty simple, but overall it was fun to play. As a kid, I remember enjoying stepping up and down on the balance board to the beat.

My family “stepped up” and moved to Canada. As I explored the shopping mall for the first time, I got so excited as I entered EB Games. IT HAD SUPER SMASH BROS. BRAWL! You see, Europe didn’t get the game for another six months, so I was able to play the game early in Canada! I literally screamed at the sight of a playable demo. My parents then bought me the Wii and the game that day.

I fell in love with Super Smash Bros. Brawl during those first few days in a hotel, as my family looked for a place to live. Playing with my sister, we explored the Subspace Emissary mode. It’s easily the best single-player mode in the series by far. Seeing how the familiar characters interact with each other is a treat, and you never know what boss is coming up. The cutscenes are well-polished and still look great to this day.

Additionally, if any of the characters you meet for the first time in Super Smash Bros. Brawl intrigue you, there was the wonderful Wii Shop Channel. It featured so many retro games through the Virtual Console program. For example, if you liked Pit, you could try Kid Icarus for the first time. Who could forget the catchy Wii Shop Channel theme as well? People every Wednesday (when the store was updated) still listen to a funny, lyrical rendition from Nirvana the Band the Show each week on social media.

There are plenty of hidden gems you could find on the Wii, too. It was the first system I had to play the incredible Okami. Additionally, it was the start of the legendary Xenoblade Chronicles series, which has many fans to this day. There were some WiiWare gems as well, like LostWinds, World of Goo, and Mega Man 9

The Wii is a special system. While the latter releases felt lacking, like The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, except for the Operation Rainfall trio, it is a wonderful system that many people can enjoy. I don’t care how many people slander the system 20 years on.