Samba De Amigo: Party Central took me back in time, to a simpler place where shaking the controllers around as a cutesy mascot struts their stuff on screen was enough to get by. But it isn’t 2006 anymore, and it doesn’t take long for the basic mechanics to grow old, even after little more than an hour with this rhythm game revival. With its immediately charming characters and stellar selection of songs there is some appeal here, however the simplicity means Party Central doesn’t always rise to the occasion.
Amigo has abandoned his traditional roots since the Nintendo GameCube, stumbling across a Spotify playlist that distils some of the most iconic pop bangers from the past decade and change for his first outing in just as long. Kesha, Carly Rae Jepsen, Jessie J, Ariana Grande, and Rina Sawayama are just a few of the icons available across the extended tracklist, with these modern hits also accompanied by a few cheesy classics and gaming tracks for decent measure. I had major whiplash going from I Really Like You to an ear bleeding rock number from Sonic Adventure. It’s ridiculous, but that’s where much of the game’s fun comes from.
Gameplay is simple, and requires an awful lot of waggling. While you can opt for a controller and button prompts, that takes the fun away from shaking the Joy-Con around like a glorified set of maracas. You’re presented with three sets of two circles, each representing a direction you must shake the controllers in alongside the beat. Hit notes that quickly fade away, sustain a beat, or even match certain speeds and pressure, depending on what songs ask of you. I played the majority of my preview on the default difficulty setting, which offered a solid amount of challenge and a cool outburst of gimmicks that shook up the predictable pace.
You’ll also need to pull off classic dance poses ranging from pedestrian hand movements to literal backflips that I’m fairly sure nobody is taking seriously. Pumping your hands to a beat or suddenly being asked to perform specific actions to each song are also common, making Party Central feel more like a featherweight minigame collection than a strict rhythm game, although such an option is there for hardcore players who want nothing but purebred beats.
Modifiers are randomly introduced a couple of times per song, determined by a slot machine of sorts that can slow down notes speeding towards you, or emblazon your maracas with two objects linked to each coming note, meaning you’ll need to use the right hand or lose points. These are cool ideas and worked wonderfully in the isolation of my brief preview session, but I can see them growing old when speeding through the campaign on my own, even more so when the effects themselves are inconsistent in quality. Determining how well you’re doing is also a bit of a mare. I’d feel like I was missing notes or failing to maintain a streak only to end songs with 100 percent accuracy and an ‘S’ rank. My first attempt gave me a paltry - but very nice - 69 percent, but from there I moved upward and never looked back. If the whole game is this easy and the modifiers only grow more tedious, I question Party Central’s longevity.
You'll find a handful of quirky party games that present the usual rhythm gameplay in a new context, however these feel like one-and-done efforts, rather than something you’d dive into each time you play. My personal favourite is a romantically themed twist on songs which tasks you and a partner to play together all while ensuring your reaction times remain identical. Doing so will bring a broken heart in the centre of the screen closer together until you eventually score extra points. On the other end of the spectrum is a terrible batting cage minigame where you basically swing the Joy-Con like a fool until you hit a range of different targets.
There is no skill here, and even with two players it’s hard to tell who is in control. It’s bad, and reminds me of forgettable shovelware better suited to the Wii than Switch. Amigo is better than this, or maybe bringing him back serves to remind us that it never really was. Hardcore Sega fans will find a lot to love in Party Central’s extensive customisation, which is littered with excellent costumes and luscious Easter Eggs, but this surface level fan service also points to an in-game currency that you need to grind for, and right now it’s unclear whether microtransactions will play a part in the full release. It drew a few smiles from me as I scrolled through, but like much of this game, part of me worries the full package will fail to hold my attention or merely not be worth the asking price.
Samba De Amigo: Party Central appears to be a competent comeback for a long forgotten gaming mascot that will satiate dedicated fans, but anything beyond this leaves something to be desired. Even an hour of co-op play was enough for me to figure out how the entire game was set to unfold, presenting neither the challenge nor the variety of rhythm games swear by.