The cutely deranged monkey mascot is back, and this time, he’s dancing with Joy-Con-powered maracas. | Image: Sega
The halcyon days of plastic instrument controllers may be long gone, but there hasn’t been a moment in recent memory where I yearned for it more than while playing Samba de Amigo: Party Central on the Nintendo Switch. The new music rhythm game from Sega launching August 29th ($39.99 standard edition / $49.99 deluxe edition) successfully resurrects the long-dormant quirky darling of the Dreamcast. But as fun as it is, I just can’t shake a strange feeling that something is missing — wait, I know exactly what it’s missing. It’s missing the joyous shake of real maracas in your hands.
Back when the first Samba de Amigo came out in 2000 on the Sega Dreamcast (after debuting in arcades in 1999), it was meant to be played with purpose-built…