Sega has finally seen fit to bring back one of their favorite missing party games; Samba de Amigo: Party Central now exists in a world where Guitar Hero and Rock Band no longer dominate the rhythm game genre, and where many people are probably most looking forward to it is Ubisoft’s annual Just Dance. Sega has had nearly 15 years to update and improve the Samba de Amigo experience—how has it held up?
Well, the basic gameplay is ported over to the Nintendo Switch seamlessly. While you can play games with the Joycon Pro, why would you do that? The fun is standing up and shaking your Joycons like real maracas. The player holds the Joycons with both hands, upright as if they were the handles of maracas. The direction in which the player holds the maracas/controller corresponds to the six ports on the screen at any given time; Shake the controller when the colored balls roll from the center of the screen to the gates, and tilt the controller in the right direction when the balls roll to the gates. Like any good rhythm game, it’s great to have a simple, engaging concept, especially since you can play it right away on the Switch. Of course, Samba de Amigo offers plenty of left-field aspects to rock each song: in between shaking your maracas, the game will also present pose prompts, where players must place the maracas according to the lyrics. prompt. Luckily, you don’t have to get the pose right (otherwise some handstands could be problematic). Sometimes, you also have to act according to the game’s prompts, such as spinning a maraca or swinging your arms like Carlton Banks. All of these prompts count toward your final score, and getting them wrong could cause you to lose your Perfect ranking. Songs can also throw out a Roulette ball; A well-timed shake of these will roll a dice forcing you into a mini-game mid-song. These games are always varied and can be a lot of fun, from having to “shake hands” with a series of characters flying towards the screen to a surprise baseball game played by swinging Joycons to a game.” “exercise” is simple where the game asks you to make some physical movements at a fast pace. There is considerable variety within each song; you never just swing the Joycons. It also ensures group sessions have plenty of moments where everyone in the chair can point at the screen and say “Wow~!” from challenge to challenge.
And that’s just the basic gameplay, stripped down to every detail. Samba de Amigo: Party City also offers multiple game modes; Besides the basic rhythm game, single players can also play Streamigo, where you have to clear songs while also achieving certain conditions like performing a specific action multiple times, all while with the hope of becoming famous on the Internet. There’s also an exciting World Party mode where you fight to defeat 19 other players through three knockout rounds. This mode can be a bit unfair due to a number of interruptions that players can send to each other, one of which completely removes on-screen ports, forcing you to miss out on input. There’s also the Party For Two mode, which itself has four distinct modes; Among the typical head-to-head matches, there is also a “Love Checker” mode, in which the game measures your compatibility with how well you can keep your swings in sync, as well as a game mode. Dedicated mini-play based mid-song roulette options.
Playing any of these modes earns you in-game coins and experience, which players can use at the Library to receive new costume components of series protagonist Amigo, Characters replace maracas or maracas or skin textures. In addition to currency, the game also categorizes several components according to your in-game rank. You can also earn in-game achievements by playing the game, which are all based on things like getting perfect scores on songs or shaking maracas a lot of times. Samba de Amigo also has many performance options to combat screen lag.
So far, you’ve got all the necessary components for an epic party game, but a few issues take away from the fun. While the Joycon sensors work well, they don’t work perfectly. There may be some missed inputs even though you are shaking. Likewise, because of the way maracas work, sometimes the game gets confused and effectively records shaking in two directions at once. I don’t know how intentional this is supposed to be; it saved my bacon on some of the harder difficulties, but it also felt a bit loose and sloppy. As mentioned before, the World Party providing weapons that can completely eliminate certain gates seems unfair in competitive mode, forcing you to fail through no fault of your own. .
But the real problem is that for a game called Samba de Amigo that features so much Latin American aesthetic, it doesn’t have much Latin American music. Leaving aside Vamos A Carnaval (itself the unofficial theme song to Samba de Amigo—you might as well have a Dance Dance Revolution game without Paranoia), there are only ten songs out of the forty listed. Millet has a Latin flavor. And at least the options are pretty good; Special credits go to Ricky Martin’s The Cup of Life (specifically the “Spanglish” version) and Pitbull’s cover of Harry Belafonte’s Shake Señora. And I guess credit to Sega for including the Macarena and La Bamba in the year of our Lord 2023. But while I can understand a rhythm game needs people-pleasing games like Tik Tok or Good Time , but building your game around maracas will result in songs like Bon Jovi’s You Give Love a Bad Name or the J. Geils Band’s cryptic Centerfolds. I can forgive Sega for not having an encyclopedic knowledge of salsa, merengue, or bachata singers. However, coming from a Latino background, the lack of more Latin American music in a game based on Latino iconography is a mistake. Music by Celia Cruz, Juan Luís Guerra or Rubén Blades would be a perfect fit. Sega at least included songs from their other franchises: Baka Mitai from the Like A Dragon series, a bunch of beloved Sonic the Hedgehog dub songs, and even the Phantom R Theme from Rhythm Thief tragically forgotten is also very interesting. However, the special recognition still belongs to the sole representative of Space Channel 5 with Go Go Cheer Girl!.
