In Depth: Shaking it with Samba

(This is part three of a four part series detailing last Sunday’s Sega Day at Nintendo World in New York City.)

When walking outside Rockefeller toward Nintendo World on Sunday there was almost indication that this was Sega’s day to shine.  The reasons are understandable–these two used to be bitter rivals in the 90s, when Sega always made it clear that it did what Nintendon’t.  And indeed, Sega’s hardware division went under a decade or so later, and Nintendidn’t.  Way to set the bar.

Pictures of Kirby and Wario adorned the front glass windows this go around.  Nintendo had some games to promote of their own, Kirby Super Star Ultra for the DS and Wario Land: Shake It! for the Wii, respectively.  The latter I almost purchased, until I realized how loud my wallet was crying out in agony.  Between Chronicles, Wii Fit, ultimately purchasing Samba (review coming), and a trip a couple blocks down to Books Kinokuniya (which I religiously refer to as “The Promised Land”) my Army branded wallet looked like it needed to go to Walter Reed for recovery.

But entering inside, it was clear that this was Sega’s space to own.  What one wouldn’t expect was what would greet you upon first sight.  It wasn’t anything Sonic Chronicles related.  It was a poster of Samba de Amigo, meeting you right at the stairway to the second floor.  When I had first entered the store, all the visual stimulation–be they TVs, little screens or the large projections overhead, had the Samba trailer.  Later on, Sonic Chronicles would be seen, and the two would loop, back to back, all day.

While the Chronicles scene was on the first floor, the entire second floor’s setups were dedicated to Samba, which had been out since last Tuesday.  Almost every Wii kiosks had the game to play, complete with Wiimote and Nunchuk accessory in tow.  Mario Super Sluggers could be played on one of the setups–ironically right next to the tournament area.  Someone had managed to sneak in playing Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games for a little bit.  A Nintendo World employee, however, quickly nipped that in the bud, saying the kiosk was meant for Samba.  Perhaps his reasoning was sound–with everyone else not participating in the store’s hourly tournament playing the game anyway, both young and old, some areas needed to be freed up for practice.

Still, Knuckles was not amused.

The Samba tournaments were hourly, and anyone could participate.  Initially there were concerns that this event may not be well seeded.  As I was purchasing Chronicles, I asked the cashier how many the store was expecting for a turnout in them.
“Like, two,” he replied.  Really?  If that was the case, maybe even I could try my hand at whatever the grand prize was.  I was concerned as to whether I would need to stay the entire duration of the tournament in order to claim said prize–meters in Rockefeller Center are only for three hours max, but I was contestant number three, how long could it have been?
Then I heard an announcement over the PA system.

“Attention, will Jonathan Gray please come to the tournament area?”
Wait…Jonathan Gray?

Could it be the Jonathan Gray, one of the old Sonic community members from the 90s and early in the 2000s, part of the old Sonic HQ web team?  WB?  Would I finally be able to meet one of the old-school community legends?
As soon as I purchased Chronicles, I rushed upstairs to find out.  As I did, his turn evidently ended, as I heard over the PA system “Thank you, Jon, for playing Samba de Amigo!”  I never did find out if it was the WB.

However, when I did make it upstairs, the number of participants far surpassed the two the cashier downstairs was expecting.  In observing the noon tournament and bits of the 2PM tournament, both instances had a short line of participants eagerly awaiting their shot at the prize–a Samba branded iPod Nano.  Not bad for two minutes of waving the Wiimote around.  In both instances, while there were kids, the number of teens and adults far surpassed them, in much the same way that the line to purchase Chronicles, as well as those trying the game outside of the tournament, had a mix of young and old alike.

The rules appeared pretty haphazard at first, but from continued observance, I learned that two participants competed at a time.  The game’s Hustle mode was used in a Battle setting.  Players got one practice round to warm up, then the second round would determine who moved on.  Points, not grade rank or percentages, were used to determine the winner, so if you did well in Round 1, you could suck it in Round 2, and vice-versa.  The same song was played in each set, likely so as to not give anyone an unfair advantage.

In the tournament area, all three monitors were setup to loop Samba, though only the center LCD was used for playing.  Behind the monitors, a wonderfully crafted mural of Wario was on display.  Subliminal?  Perhaps.  It was hard to stare at it, since on-lookers and players alike couldn’t help but notice the art direction within the game.  Samba looks just as colorful, vivid, and bright as it did when the Sonic Team first made Samba for the Dreamcast.  You can’t help but just feel good at the mere sight of what’s been done, and as the music style has also stayed the same in this version, the whole experience can lift the spirit.  It’s a true party game–more than anything Wii Play or Wii Sports may accomplish to both the casual and hardcore gamer.
The song of choice for the Noon tournament was the classic Samba de Janiero.  As each pair tackled another for that iPod, the game’s Hustle mode threw in a multitude of dance moves and poses.  A few were thrown for a loop, while others didn’t really care how silly they looked.  For them, the eye was on the prize, and the prize could only be won by racking up those points–in any way possible.

For a game so new, I was amazed to see how high the grades were, and how complete each player had run.  It wasn’t uncommon to see newcomers rack up scores higher than 85%, and there were more than a few A-ranks with scores touching 90% or more.  Having attempted Samba in-store just a few minutes in between sets, I just couldn’t understand.  Maybe it was the lag having traveled from Philly to New York via car, or maybe I was a little rusty on the controls, having only played Boom Blox the past few months prior.

The winner of the Noon tournament was someone who only professed to having started the game just the previous day.  Heather had been waiting in line to see the final results, so I didn’t get to see her performance.  It had to have been killer, however, because there were plenty of B and A rankings following her.  You’ll note in the photo the fan art drawing of NiGHTS–proving that while the Samba revival may be Gearbox developed, there were plenty of Sonic Team faithful in the crowd.  Interesting to note, though, that I didn’t see the same group in line for Chronicles rushing upstairs for Samba.  There were two very different objectives on this day, and while Sonic fans were existent on both floors, rarely did the two apparent subsets of them cross paths.
Heather’s story wasn’t the high point of the day, however.

Meet Jordan and Dylan–Jordan on the right with the cap, Dylan on the left in the yellow shirt.  They were participants in the tournament right alongside the teenagers and adults.  Like Heather, I assume they haven’t been playing the game very long, and that’s probably because they haven’t been alive very long.  Both Jordan and Dylan could not have been much older than 6 or 7–far too young to remember the original Samba de Amigo for the Dreamcast.  That didn’t stop both of them, however, from taking their older counterparts to task in the competition.  Of course, it’s not out of the question for kids these young to be playing games these days–even I started playing Sonic when I was just 6 years old–but given the coordination involved with Samba and how intense it can get, this was either going to pull a load of heartstrings, or be incredibly embarrassing and unfortunate.
With staff and management in tow to ensure a fair fight, both Jordan and Dylan took on the Hustle mode–and they were unbelievably accurate for their age.  Their ability to adapt to the controls and even pose was much more on target than my attempts to control the game at one of the kiosks.  The crowd cheered them on through the warm-up round, and again in the second one that counted.  Dylan’s parents were next to me, rooting for their son, of course–but showing support for Jordan as well.

In the end, both Jordan and Dylan received high marks from the game–both got a B rank, and both had accuracy rates in the mid to high 80 percent tile.  It was Dylan who beat out Jordan in the end, only by a few thousand points.  When it was all over, the crowd erupted in applause for both of them.  Neither of them may have won a prize, but for the day, they won over the hearts of all those in attendance, from the organizers to the spectators, and everyone in between.  I could hear some of the staff talking amongst themselves how “cute” this part of the battle was (yes, I did hear the word “cute”), and, in many ways, how it rejuvenated much of those in attendance.

More of the younger crowd showed up to play with each passing tournament, but it was this matchup in particular that strikes home an important point: While many will see some of the content in Samba as geared more toward the older gamer that may remember this as a Sonic Team production, Sega is starting to do with its core franchises what Nintendo has now perfected with much of its Wii library.  In the case of Sonic, that may not be such a good thing.  With something as easy to pick up as Samba, however, it may be a good test for Sega to decide whether it lean more casual.  It will be some time before we know how well this revival sells, but if it does well, and it can bring all ages together, why not cater to this crowd more, in addition to satisfying more traditional, “hardcore” gamers?  Samba de Amigo may be just the ace in the hole Sega needs to capitalizing on this growing component of the industry as it changes and evolves.

I will be reviewing Samba de Amigo in the coming days and weeks, so be sure to keep an eye out.