My initial reaction when Wii Party U was brought up during the E3 2013 Nintendo Direct was that of a sneer. Through the sputtering stream, I made out Satoru Iwata asking us to please understand that Wii Party U was delayed from summer to October, taking up one of the precious fall release slots. Landing among Wind Waker HD, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, and Super Mario 3D World, I assumed Wii Party U would be dead on arrival. A game that, regardless of quality, would be lost, not gaining enough traction in the hardcore and not being a big title for the casual.

Then I played Wii Party U, and much like Nintendo Land last year, I saw the potential. Now, Nintendo Land fell short of that potential. My rule of thumb for Nintendo Land was that if I still played it the summer after the Wii U launch, it was a success. We’re in that summer, and I’ve turned on Nintendo Land (maybe) twice in the past five months.

But I still see that same laughing-out-loud multiplayer nonsense that I saw in Nintendo Land in Wii Party U. It was clearly evident to me as I played the same few games several times with my fellow Nintendo World Report staffers Andrew Brown and Justin Berube at an event in New York City last week. We joyously played Name That Face several times, as we did dumber and dumber things to represent the simple and silly description. Justin used a bag of chips as a prop for “eating really hot food” and I managed to accurately convey “singing serious karaoke.” It was good old fashioned fun.

Rivalry and competition started up when we played Operation: Sandbox and the GamePad-only Foosball game. Operation: Sandbox is sort of like the Tanks game in Wii Play if it was a focused, short, and deceptively strategic affair. For Foosball, each played used an analog stick while they looked at the GamePad. You have just enough control over your team to make the game frantic and fun while still being a little reliant on skill. The idea of having tournaments of this mini-game, which is possible to do with certain games in Wii Party U, is very enticing.

We only saw a small amount of Wii Party U’s 80+ mini-games spread out across the Mario Party-like board game, the House Party mode, and the brand new GamePad Party mode, but I want to see more, even if a lack of online might kill this game before it makes it out of the gate. Even if I only have a few fleeting local multiplayer sessions, bolstered by a NWR gathering at PAX East or the rare time when I convince my friends to play a Wii U game, I’m still excited for Wii Party U. And maybe, if you can be in the right circumstances, you should be, too.