Sega has finally seen fit to bring back one of their missing party-game favorites; 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 the most people can look forward to is the yearly Just Dance from Ubisoft. Sega has had almost 15 years to update and improve on the Samba de Amigo experience—how does it hold up?

Well, the base gameplay translates to the Nintendo Switch seamlessly. While you can play the game with a Joycon Pro, why would you? The fun is standing up and shaking your Joycons like actual maracas. Players hold the Joycons in both hands, straight up as if they were the handles to maracas. The direction in which players hold the maracas/controllers corresponds to the six gates on-screen at any given time; shake the controller as colored orbs roll from the center of the screen to the gates, and tilt the controllers in the right directions as the orbs roll over to the gates. Like any good rhythm game, it's great to have a simple, engaging concept, especially since you can play it right out of the box on a Switch. Of course, Samba de Amigo gives plenty of left-field aspects to shake up each song: between shaking your maracas, the game will also throw out posing prompts, wherein the player must position the maracas according to the prompt. Thankfully, you don't need to take the exact pose (else some of the handstands might be problematic). Sometimes, you must also take action with the game prompts, like spinning the maraca around or swinging your arms like Carlton Banks. These prompts all count towards your final score, and messing them up can cost you your Perfect rank. The song might also throw out a Roulette orb; shaking in time with these will throw out a dice roll that forces you into a mid-song mini-game. These are always varied and can be a ton of fun, from having to "shake hands" with a barrage of characters flying towards the screen to a sudden game of baseball played by swinging the Joycons to a simple bout of "exercise" where the game asks you to make some physical motion at speed. There's a significant variety during each song; you're never just swinging the Joycons. It also ensures group sessions have plenty of moments where the people on the couch can point at the screen and go "Oh~!" from some challenge or other.

And that's just the basic gameplay, stripped to the studs. Samba de Amigo: Party City also offers plenty of gameplay modes; besides the basic rhythm game, single players can also play Streamigo, where you must clear songs while also achieving certain conditions like performing a particular action so many times, all in the hopes of internet fame. There's also a fun World Party mode where you fight to out-shake 19 other players via three elimination rounds. This mode can be a bit unfair given some interruptions players can send each other, one of which outright removes gates on the screen, forcing you to miss inputs. There's also the Party For Two mode, which itself has four separate modes; among the typical head-to-head matches, there is also the "Love Checker" mode, where the game measures your compatibility against how well you can keep your shakes in sync, as well as a dedicated mini-game mode based off of the mid-song roulette options.

Playing any of these modes earns you in-game coins and experience, which players can use at the Gallery to get series protagonist Amigo new outfit components, maracas or maraca stand-ins, or skin textures. Besides currency, the game gates some components by your in-game rank. You can also earn in-game achievements by playing the game, all based around things like attaining perfect scores in songs or shaking the maracas so many times. Samba de Amigo also has plenty of performance options to combat screen latency.

So far, you have all the parts necessary for a phenomenal party game, but some issues mar the fun. While the Joycon sensors work great, they don't work perfectly. There can be some missed inputs despite your shaking. Likewise, because of how the maracas work, sometimes the game gets confused and effectively registers a shake as two directions simultaneously. I don't know how intentional this is supposed to be; it's saved my bacon in some of the harder difficulties, but it also feels a bit loose and sloppy. As mentioned earlier, the World Party giving out weapons that can altogether remove certain gates feels unfair in a competitive mode, forcing you to fail through no fault of your own.

But the real issue is that for a game titled Samba de Amigo that so heavily features Latin American aesthetics, it doesn't feature much Latin American music. Ignoring Vamos A Carnaval (itself the unofficial theme song of Samba de Amigo—you may as well have a Dance Dance Revolution game without Paranoia), only ten songs out of the listed forty have any Latin flavor. And the choices are pretty good, at least; special credit goes 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 Macarena and La Bamba in the year of our Lord 2023. But while I can understand a rhythm game needing people-pleasers like Tik Tok or Good Time, basing your game around maracas makes songs like Bon Jovi's You Give Love A Bad Name or the J. Geils Band's Centerfold puzzling inclusions. I can forgive Sega for not having an encyclopedic knowledge of salsa, merengue, or bachata singers. Still, being from a Latino background, the absence of more Latin American music from a game based around Latino iconography feels wrong. The music of Celia Cruz, Juan Luís Guerra, or Rubén Blades would have been a perfect fit. Sega at least snuck in songs from their other franchises: Baka Mitai from the Like A Dragon series, a slew of beloved Sonic the Hedgehog insert songs, and even Theme of Phantom R from the tragically-forgotten Rhythm Thief are fun. Still, special credit goes to the sole representation of Space Channel 5 with Go Go Cheer Girl!.

Despite these misgivings, Samba De Amigo: Party Central is nevertheless a great package, and Sega did a phenomenal job bringing back one of its more forgotten series. The charming polygon-men of the pose prompts hearken back to the series' auspicious start on the Dreamcast; the goofy cast of Amigo and friends are packed with all the charm that only a Sega character can have—and most importantly, the system is solid and satisfying, packed with all of the arcade-y goodness that all good party games need. The Sega faithful will likely get this one sight-unseen, we're attached to all of Sega's old unloved weirdos that way—but anyone that doesn't bleed Sega sky-blue should consider adding Samba de Amigo: Party Central to their rotation of party games along with Mario Kart and Wii Sports.