The GHZ Forum

Zeta wrote:I notice most of the negative controller reviews are coming from people who played the Dreamcast version and don't seem to realize the DC Maraccas and the Wiimotes require significantly different playstyles for the same game.

Yeah, but that sucks anyway??

Has anyone here actually played it yet?

Well, apparently it's based on tilt. Horizontal is middle, pointed down is low, and vertical is high. So it seems most of the people having trouble with the game are flinging their arms up and down but keeping the maracas vertical by twisting their wrists while they do it, which isn't what the game is programmed to do.

I tried it today for about 30 seconds. Yeah, tilt-based. So if you're holding the controller upright, but low, you hit high. In practice, it wasn't an issue for the half-song I played, but hard was the hardest I could choose out of the box, apparently, so…

I plan to rent it in a week or two; if no one's delved deeper into it by then I'll post my thoughts.

So I bought it. I was pumped.


I like it quite a bit!

My history with the DC game goes as follows: I bought the game later on, went out of my way to get some 3rd party maracas since I could find no affordable official ones on eBay, and then those would only work about 50% of the time. Granted, that 50% was substantial fun, but after all the set-up and anticipation, it was very disappointing to not be able to enjoy the game to it's fullest.

Cut to today with Samba De Amigo on Wii: A major plus is the fact I can play it without flipping through some shady Engrish instructions to set up a controller that may not even work during a playthrough. However, that's only a personal plus and I've no idea how godly accurate the SEGA maracas were.

I feel the controls work well. But the off brand "Samba Samba" maraca add-ons that I walked out of Best Buy with (because they only cost $5 with purchase of the game and I figured "Why not?") are ESSENTIAL to have on playing at higher difficulties. In my experience, they add just the right amount of heft so that you're tilting your controllers and shaking without snapping the remote out of the proper tilt. Feels more solid, and it allows plenty of freedom to groove so long as you keep the controller buttons facing up. Without them it is very easy to shake the Wiimote right into the next level up or down, so you need to be careful(which is hard because if you don't shake enough, the game won't recognize it at all.) There's also something satisfying about hearing the real maraca sound that the speaker just can't pull off.

They should have included these things with the game to start with... which in fact they are! In Europe. They are official Sega shells that look much, much better. Plus they're including two of each, so you don't have to do the awkward one-remote one-maraca-covered-remote thing I'm doing right now.

So I say that the game is very fun if you have the proper equipment. I would recommend 2 remotes and 2 remote maraca shells. Nunchuk will work, but feels very restricting.

Now of course I hope that the developers mess around with MotionPlus and improve controls some for a sequel(or a DL patch for this one? Wishful thinking.). It'd be swell not to have to explain a bunch of particulars in order to enjoy this game properly on any difficulty. If it's any consolation, Easy and Normal modes are slow enough that anyone should be able to enjoy it regardless of control scheme choice. I want Samba Wii to do well... it's obvious GearBox put work into the presentation and loved making it. It deserves to be a great party game and Wii seems like the platform to give it that chance since there isn't the high entry fee there was on DC. I'm going to show the game to my family and friends, even if all they do is play around in Easy mode. In a sense, that's probably the right way to go about it. This game was made to play while you're drunk and hanging out with friends. It's not fucking GH3 Through the Fire and the Flames.

I just "get it" I guess. The best thing I can tell you is to give the game a try and see what you think.

I got it, pretty much agree with everything Dash said. The controls can be a little sticky, but partly that's me just adjusting and forgetting to shift position. Pose works perfectly. Presentation of music, graphics, art, and voices are all amazing and very impressive. Probably would have been a bit better with MotionPlus but works almost perfectly without it.

So I finally got around to playing this a reasonable amount recently, and my verdict is meh. It's not terrible, but the controls are just not accurate enough, methinks. To hit enough notes to not fail / do well, I ended up shaking the Wiimotes in the direction the notes were flowing -- i.e. left to right or right to left for yellow -- and even then it seemed fickle. It probably didn't help that I played a whole bunch of the DC version, so I was used to holding the maracas upright, and tilting them all over the place was uncomfortable. Overall, it made me want to go play the Dreamcast version, so if you have it available, I'd just do that for your Samba fix. Or rent it and see if the controls agree with you more than they did with me.

There's a new promotion movie on SEGA's YouTube channel, which is also on the official site. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3HE7IWU8Rc

Sightings of Samba Wii on budget racks/boxes/whatever for 20 bucks, anybody? I caught sight of it there at Wal-Mart today, and way up at the lonely top of the rack too. There was no expectation of this lighting up the charts, but now it's sharing company with Wii Crossword games. Ow.

(this same Wal-Mart has like 18 copies of NHL 2001 for PS1 in the vicinity of that rack, each one factory sealed and with a very fresh looking $19.98 price sticker applied. wow.)

Yeah, I've seen it for $20 in a few places now, too. I guess it didn't move to budget pricing any faster than Superstar Tennis or Nights, but yow!

It's really a shame that the controls were so lousy. I missed the game the first time around and would have loved to pick it up now, even if it had required its own stand-alone maraca peripherals to work properly.

Maybe they'll give it another go if MotionPlus is ever established.