I loved playing Samba de Amigo on the Dreamcast; I was lucky to have 2 sets of Sega original maracas controllers, even! I was thrilled that it was making a comeback for the Wii, because this meant wireless play. However, early reviews from professional game review sources panned the Wii remake almost unanimously for one basic reason: the controls were broken. Some have even said to wait until the game is "fixed" or adapted to the Motion Plus accessory Nintendo is releasing this summer (probably).
However, the controls are not broken, and I have some doubts that the game will be re-tooled for Motion Plus. Some reviews were pretty lazy, and the reviewers did not even try to learn how the game senses position and maraca-shaking. Indeed, you cannot play the Wii version precisely how you played the Dreamcast version and expect good results whatsoever. There are adjustments that must be made.
Luckily, adjusting to the Wii version's controls is not very difficult; it just requires keeping a few things in mind: 1) the height of the "maracas" is determined solely by the tilt of the controllers; 2) shaking is most successful along the plane of the controller (i.e., to hit the upper targets, thrust the controllers vertically toward the ceiling, as if you're jabbing the balls into the rings); 3) crossing-over left and right for poses requires the controller surfaces to be facing your torso; and 4) middle target shaking is forgiving for the most part, but it's easier if the controller surfaces are facing outward (and try to shake horizontally, tapping the balls into the targets). I started a discussion on this page with these and other tips for controls, but these 4 might be the most important tips. So far, I've been able to clear Career Mode on "Hard."
One frustration of the game is that so much is locked, until you clear certain challenges in Career mode. A huge motivation for keeping at Career mode was finally unlocking Soul Bossa Nova, although the songs in Ulala's Challenge are also awesome. Frustrations notwithstanding, the song selection is so amazing that it's worth the practice to get the unlocks. Unlocking new sound effects for maracas and dance moves is less compelling for me, but it is part of the career trial nonetheless. I don't like the maraca sound effects, but the controllers vibrate on successful shakes, and that's cool.
The mini-games are pretty fun. To unlock Guacamolé! (Whack-a-Mole), just get a C or better in the rock busting mini-game. Really, the total content of this game is incredible: the huge number of songs are uniformly high-quality: they are Latin/mambo with some pop. Downloadable song packs are also available for purchase for 500 Nintendo points each (1 pack = 3 songs or so) within the game, and the quality of those are very high; they are the original performers (no cover/tribute bands). Multiplayer includes head-to-head, Love Mode, and Battle. Sega superstars such as Sonic and Ulala make appearances, although if you're dancing they are hard to notice. Happily, so much is happening (visually and otherwise), that even people waiting for their turn to play (or just spectating) will stay entertained.
The game really gets you moving, sweating, dancing, and feeling awesome. I'm stunned how far the price has fallen on Amazon, too. This game is the easiest Wii recommendation ever. Buy it while you still can. ¡Samba!
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I always like this game. I had to get another one. Works great!
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