Back in 2006, Nintendo decided that they were going to be a little weird with their new console. Boasting a unique controller that more closely resembled a remote, the Wii marked quite the gambit by pivoting away from everything the industry considered important to instead embrace motion controls.

This change in gameplay coincided with a deliberate shift in perspective, as well. Now you were part of the action, and what better way to showcase this than with a player avatar? This is how we ended up with the generation of the Miis, something that Nintendo had actually been kicking around for quite some time.

Thanks to their simple yet intuitive customisation, you could construct a reasonable facsimile of yourself, your friends and family, celebrities, fictional characters, or miscellaneous eldritch abominations to your heart’s content. From there, it was straight into the action, whether that was bowling, yoga, or strumming the banjo.

The Miis proved quite the hit amongst gamers, and Nintendo leant into this by introducing more apps and experiences with them at the forefront. While Mario remained the company’s unquestioned mascot overall, the Miis positioned themselves as the de facto ambassadors of the Wii — an unprecedented success that shifted over 100 million units, still the high mark for a Nintendo dedicated home console.

It was understandable, then, that this pairing would continue into the Wii U era. Miis were the stars of the pack-in title Nintendo Land, Miis were added to the Smash Bros. lineup, and Miis shouted at you excitedly from the home menu, begging you to see what kind of madness had been posted on the online Miiverse today.

Of course, we know now that the Wii U was doomed from the outset. With roughly 13 and a half million units sold, it paled in comparison to its predecessor, and more concerningly, its biggest competitor at the time: Sony’s PlayStation 4 and its 117 million units.

In the same way that the Wii could be viewed as a reset from the GameCube, 2017’s Switch wiped the slate clean once again. New focus, new design philosophy, new personality.

I’ve spoken at length about how stark the Nintendo Switch feels after the fun and frivolity of the previous decade. The menu is bereft of colour, and there isn’t any cheesy music accompanying the eShop anymore. It’s all so… sterile, isn’t it? The Switch itself is fun and quirky, with its Joy-Cons and innovative hybrid nature, so why is the user experience anything but?

I had hoped beyond hope that the Switch 2 would play things a little less safely, now that Nintendo’s position at the top of the market was back in hand, but nearly a year into its lifespan, it has really been more of the same.

What could have been the marriage of style and functionality has instead remained stubbornly mired in the latter. Prior to its reveal, I hoped that they might bring back the 3DS’ spectacular StreetPass feature. Now, I see how farfetched that concept is, because what we ended up with is essentially just a stronger version of the original Switch. It has little to no personality, and it costs a metric fuckton.

With this transition away from the Wii era, Miis would be shelved for the most part throughout the first half of the Switch’s tenure. They were there, sure, but you could hardly use them for little more than a profile avatar.

For me, this was a real damn shame. In 2011, shortly after the 3DS released, I expressed my fondness for Miis on my personal blog. In 2020, I began to understand the parasocial comfort the Miis gave me during a difficult time on my life.

If you’re not interested in the additional reading (or if you don’t want to give the decaying husk of Twinfinite any undeserved clicks), the shorthand version is that I really love seeing familiar faces from throughout my life populate the games I’m playing.

For the most part, I’ve echoed the same sentiments I made in those previous pieces, however unlike the situation in 2020, there is a little more cause for optimism in today’s Mii landscape.

In a somewhat surprising move, Nintendo ported the 3DS exclusive, Miitopia, to the Switch in 2021. It had a few new bells and whistles like increased customisation options as well as a horse that would join your adventures, but its best benefit was the increased market size. More Switches means more sales, and as of now, the game has combined for over 3 million sales across the two platforms.

While this doesn’t position it as a killer app or anything, almost 2 million of those sales were for the Switch edition, currently placing it within the top 75 bestselling games on the platform. Not too bad for a port of a game released within the latter years of the 3DS’ shelf life.

Most recently, the other big 3DS Mii franchise has been dusted off. Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream brings the wacky ant farm/life simulator to the Switch and Switch 2, with UK sales in its debut week surpassing even Capcom’s AAA blockbuster, Pragmata.

While this isn’t a guarantee of sustained success, it is at least a strong indicator that there’s still an appetite for Miis. And it’s made me greedy for more, more, more!!

After experimenting with generic player avatars in hitherto Mii-friendly environments to varying degrees of success — 1-2-Switch, Ring Fit Adventure, and more recently, Drag x Drive — it’s clear to me that these don’t hit the same as the Miis. Did you want to play as a bland nobody in Nintendo Switch Sports? No, you didn’t. Did you want to play as a dynamic Mii in Nintendo Switch Sports? Slightly more so, because overall you probably just didn’t want to play Nintendo Switch Sports at all.

At long last, it’s time to milk the long-retired cow for all she’s worth, and bring back the big guns: I want a new generation of the Wii series of games. Wii Sports, Wii Play, Wii Party, Wii Fit, Wii Music, give me all of ’em and let me relive the glory years of Mii-mayhem.

Boasting more accurate gyroscope and accelerometer technology, the Joy-Con 2’s motion controls are better than ever, so let’s put them to use. Nostalgia is a powerful tool, especially when you’re talking about a series of games that have accumulated over 221 million units sold.

Innovation is the name of the game, as always, so I can understand why pessimists might prefer these experiences stay in the past. But I’m inclined to think that in the intervening years, a whole slew of fun new ideas may have popped into someone’s mind at Nintendo HQ.

And with those floodgates open, who knows what else we could see? A successor to the Everybody Votes and Today and Tomorrow channels? A new and improved Mii Plaza? Or just something, anything that elevates the Switch 2 from an expensive piece of monotonous tech to the charismatic digital buddy of yesteryear?

The answer, of course, is always going to be no. It’s fun to speculate though, isn’t it? A damn side more fun than it is to navigate the Switch 2 menu.