Shake your maracas to these hot samba songs together with Amigo the monkey!
Samba de Amigo for the Wii is an enhanced version of the Samba de Amigo games originally released for the Dreamcast. This is a rhythm game where you use the controllers as a pair of maracas and in order to clear a stage you must shake the maracas to the music as instructed on the screen. The story of the game is nowhere to be seen in the game as the game is only played on a song-by-song basis. Even though there are many game modes to play, there's really nothing more to this game than to shake away to the 44 included songs.
The game is played by shaking the right maraca at the right position - either high, medium or low – at the right time. When playing you'll see six different rings, and along with the song there are balls going towards these rings, representing high, medium and low shakes for each maraca. When the ball reaches the ring, you must shake the maraca at the corresponding level. Your timing must of course be precise to score the better scores. Apart from maraca shaking the songs also include "hustles" where you must wave your maraca (or maracas) in various ways, as shown on the screen. The hustles seem to encourage crazy waving back and forth rather than waving in the rhythm of the song which results in mindless offbeat waving. Every now and then you must also strike poses as shown by a figure on the screen. These three elements – shakes, hustles and poses are the bread and butter of Samba de Amigo.
In order to get access to all the songs and game modes in the game you have to unlock them by reaching various accomplishments. The more stages you beat, the more content will be unlocked – but the game will not tell you the specific goals that need to be met to unlock the various stuff. So you either have to check a guide for the game or just keep playing and hope for the best. Either way works fine.
Most game modes can be played in four different difficulty levels, where the two hardest must be unlocked by showing your worth in the "easy" and "normal" modes.
The standard Career Mode is a series of challenges (or songs, rather) of varying difficulty that the various characters from Maracas City will have you go through. In order to clear a song, you must get a decent score in it. Your effort is ranked by your score, which in turn is based on how many consequent shakes you can do without failing, and if it's good enough you clear the stage. Otherwise you must try again. Career Mode also lets you know how many of the unlocks you have unlocked and how many percent of the Career Mode you have completed.
The other single player modes are Quick Play, Love Love, Battle, Classic, Survival and Minigames. Love Love is obviously meant to be played in two player, but can also be played together with an AI controlled partner. This is a game mode where you play together with your partner to check your compatibility. The goal of this game mode is, just in the other game modes; shake the controllers to the song but this time around the score is based on synchronizing your moves as much as possible with your partner. The better you are synced, the better the score and rank. Depending on how well you do, the game might dub you and your partner "a cute couple" or "a cool couple" for example, and estimate how long you have been in your relationship. It's all a good laugh - nothing more, nothing less.
The Battle mode lets you face off a AI controlled opponent in a samba duel. For as long as you can keep shaking those maracas to the song without missing a beat your "amigo-score" will rise. When it reaches 100, a bomb goes off and takes away some of your opponents health bar. The goal is, of course to drain all your opponents life. The Minigames are a really crazy bunch – there is a whack-a-mole type game that you control just like the maracas in the regular game modes, and a mode called "Monkey see, Monkey do" where you must mimic maraca shakes, among others. There are eight minigames in total, and while they're all nice to have and worth a shot or two, there's no risk that they will captivate you for any prolonged period of time.
There are also three Training Modes where you will be instructed by Amiga how the game is played and how you should hold your controllers when playing the game. There's also a calibration option that you should go through before playing. The developers have also included two rather pointless bonus videos that you can unlock for your viewing pleasure.
Samba de Amigo can be played in two different ways – either with one Wii Remote and one Nunchuck, or with two Wii Remotes. It seems that using two Wii Remotes helps in registering the position of your maracas, but that's a very, very minor advantage.
No matter what you use to play, there is one problem with how the game registers your shakes. If the song requires you to do quick switches between the high, medium and low shakes you'll notice that there is a small delay before the game registers your move – this is especially obvious if you keep shaking the controller in between that switch. In the heat of a groove, for a casual gamer this is very hard, if not impossible to recognize, but a normal gamer should be able to take it into consideration. The game shows markers that indicate what position the game senses the controller at. If you pay close attention to these markers and play by them rather than how you actually hold the controller, you will find that the delay is much easier to cope with.
While this delay (or flaw?) makes sense game wise, or hardware wise rather, it sure does not make sense in the middle of a samba groove.
Local multiplayer is also supported for two players if you have two Wii Remotes and two nunchucks (or four Wii Remotes!). There's Battle-, Classic- and Love Love Mode.
The game is funnier when played together with another player because you will get to laugh at each other's mistakes and enjoy the progress you are making. Because the intense nature of the game, it's also nice as a party game where you can take turns with a bunch of people to allow for some resting between songs.
The game supports online leaderboards with the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection option. The idea of having high score tables and comparing them against other players around the world is a solid concept, but the developers should maintain the boards and check that no cheating is going on there. As it appears now, many of the scores are fake and done with cheats or hacks and that basically ruins the fun for everyone else.
The visuals of the game are incredibly cheery and colorful. The design has a very well designed and distinct look that suits the samba music perfectly. It's all very lively and full of rhythmic energy. While playing the screen is very busy, full with bands playing and all kinds of characters dancing away to the beat, including your Mii's. The style of the game is so much over-the-top that you can't help thinking what the artists were high on when they designed it.
It can't be denied that the characters and the funny-mad style all have a good potential in making people smile and even laugh! And that alone is worth a lot. The graphics are also very crisp and creative, making it fun to just watch while others are playing.
Samba de Amigo is a game that's all about music. The 44 songs included in the game are more or less worldwide hits. Some of the more prominent songs are "Macarena", "Aserejé / The Ketchup Song", "La Bamba" and "Tubthumping". Most songs are instantly recognized and they are all related to the samba theme. Sega fans have all the reasons to miss the Sega game soundtrack songs from the original Dreamcast versions as they are sadly not included in this release.
There are, however song packs available for download for a fee. The price (500 Wii Points) can be argued, but if you like the game it's great value to the total experience.
This is a party game in the true sense of the word. The game delivers many pumping beats that are sure to get you and the rest of your house all the way into the hot and sweaty samba groove. As a matter of fact, you need not be surprised if this game will make you break a sweat just after a few songs! If you allow yourself shake away to the game, it will be a good and fun workout for you, as well as a memorable game experience.
Samba de Amigo for the Wii is absolutely a game worth having, but don't expect it to be quite as friendly towards casual players as it appears to be – the game mechanics must be learned thoroughly before you can hope to play the game properly.