Sega shook up the rhythm game genre in 2000 with the release of Amigo Samba for Dreamcast. The game lets players shake a pair of dedicated maracas controllers to the beat of Latin bops like Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca,” Los Del Rio’s “Macarena,” Quincy Jones’ “Soul Bossa Nova,” and, well, sure, Reel Big Fish’s cover of “Take On Me”. Sega hopes to recapture that magic of the new millennium with a sequel, Samba de Amigo: Party Centralcoming to Nintendo Switch this summer.
Sega announced the new Samba de Amigo during Wednesday’s Nintendo Direct. This is the second surprise revival of the Dreamcast era so far this year.
Samba de Amigo: Party Central will include 40 songs from a variety of genres (eg EDM, pop, Latin), a slew of mini-games (like Love Checker!). The game will also feature online multiplayer in World Party mode.
the original Amigo Samba was developed by Sega’s Sonic Team. It debuted in arcades and was later ported to Sega Dreamcast. Gamers who wanted the full experience at home invested in a set of (relatively) expensive maracas controllers, which shipped in limited numbers. Sega and Gearbox Software released a port of the original game to the Wii in 2008.
