GB Review: Samba de Amigo (Wii)

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GB Review: Samba de Amigo (Wii)Posted 11:20am Tue Nov 18, 2008 by Zach Lott Tags: review, sega, samba de amigo, wii, nintendo

While it was a great idea to bring Samba de Amigo, an old Dreamcast game in which you play Latin songs with two maraca peripherals, to the Wii, the final product suffers greatly from absurdly imprecise controls. It's difficult to have fun playing various tracks when you're frustrated to the point of violence at how hard it is to line up the Wii remote and nunchuck's cursors with the symbols on screen. Stay away unless you are really itching for yet another rhythm game to play.

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Let me be honest: I never played the original Samba de Amigo. I don't know how fun it was, nor do I know whether or not this Wii port does a good job of replicating the original's gameplay. What I do know is that this version of the game isn't good.

My complaint has nothing to do with the colorful, friendly presentation or the cheesy Latin music or the dancing animals or the core gameplay element itself, even if it is a little antiquated in this new era of rhythm games. Nay, all my problems with this game boil down to one thing: controls. This game controls horrendously, and it makes what could be a great experience into a nightmare.

The way the gameplay is set up is that you have six circles on the screen arranged in a hexagon, with each colored pair representing a target area. The nunchuck controls the circles on the left side while the remote controls the circles on the right side. Each has a cursor that shifts to different circles based on where in the air you hold them (high, middle, and low). Notes appear in the center of the hexagon and shoot out to the various target areas, and once they enter the center of a circle you can shake your controller in order to play them. There are also poses and dances that you must perform throughout certain songs with the controllers.

However, the problem with this is that the controls are insanely imprecise. The game refuses to properly recognize what target area your controllers are pointed at, and it's because of this that the game becomes so frustrating. It's not so bad when you play on the easy and normal modes, as the rhythmic patterns are simple enough that you can easily earn the "C" rank needed to pass your playthrough of a track, but once you start playing on the higher difficulty levels you must quickly change through the high, middle, and low positions while playing more difficult rhythms. It is when this occurs that the game becomes unplayable.

There's a few extra features, such as downloadable tracks and some mini-games as well as some useless unlocks, but these can't do anything to fix the fundamental control problem that ruins this game. While you may enjoy the game with a friend if you play on moderate difficultly levels, I can't recommend that you buy this title. There are games out there that are far more deserving of your money.