Samba De Amigo (dreamcast): This Amigo Needs Help

[White Demon]

After recently getting a copy of Samba De Amigo and the Cha Cha Amigo controller (from Play-Asia), I need some help. I posted the following on the Lik-Sang forums a couple of days ago, but since no-one has replied, and I've seen people here talking about it, I thought I'd ask here.

Please read the following text, which I originally posted on the Lik-Sang forum.

I've just bought myself Samba De Amigo and the Cha Cha Maracas to play with it.

The only thing is, how the hell are the maracas supposed to work? I'm able to press the button on the right maraca to select things or the button on the left maraca to cancel (sometimes its the other way around) and thats about it. Nothing else works!

Occassionally the maracas will work to the extent that I can shake them and get successful moves on the middle (yellow) dots, but they will not move up or down at all. Note this has only happened twice so far out of all atempts.

Compounding this fact, the maracas will not allow any movement in the menus by moving the maracas at all. Not only that, but a lot of the time the menu options will move up/down on their own. (they just did it as I typed this).

I check the manual, that was no help at all with any of the

What the hell is going on here? How are these thing supposed to work? Do I have to stand some special way? Hold the maracas some special way? Set the floor sensors up in some special fashion?

I don't understand this at all, other people at both lik-sang and Play asia have said the maracas work great. But these bloody things are driving me insane. I feel I've wasted $100 (Australian dollars) on something that just won't work properly.

Any help, hints, tips, suggestions AT ALL will be appreciated. Anything. Really, help me please, I'm totally at the end of my tether with this.

​

Further to the above post, I've gotten them to work *occasionally* but they're always very iffy with whether they will work or not to begin with (the buttons on the maracas always work but that's it most of the time). When they do work, I find that when I hold them at chestlevel, the game interprets that as the lowest position, eyelevel as the middle position and above my head (arms fully extended) as the top position. (I'm 5 foot 5 inches tall). No matter what height settings I set for the maracas in the options menu or my own height when starting a game, the height the maracas operate at is always the same as I wrote above. Not only that, but on the times they do work, as soon as the game asks for a pose and I move the maracas to the pose position, they immediate stop working no matter what.

Like I said though, most of the time they just refuse to work. But it would appear that they must be operational as they do work sometimes.

I'm going to try them again tommorrow night and see what happens. As stated in my original post to Lik-Sang forum, any help/suggestions on how they work, with relation to things like space required, best operational height, where to stand and hold the maracas in relation to the sensors and so on would be most appreciated.

Please help out, I would like to get this game working properly.

 

[shinneri]

You probably just got a bad set of maracas. I have the same ones, and mine sometimes stop responding and makes the game re-sense them (sending me back to the main menu <_< ).

From what I remember you should be maybe a step or so behind the sensors, and hold the maracas out over the sensors. I think I hold my maracas higher than normal, but that's all controlled by setting the height and stuff (which you say does nothing--suggesting yours are messed up). To move around the menus you raise or lower the left maraca, and I think shake to select (you probably already know that).

I don't know if this is any help to you, but good luck. Have you asked if you can exchange them?

 

[White Demon]

Thanks for your reply.

As I said before, I tried them out again last Friday, in a number of different places and configurations (with VGA, TV and so on). Space was an issue here, as I played them in about a 3 metre (9 feet) square area and they work fine. In any smaller area they don't.

But something I found really strange is that for some reason they won't work when the Dreamcast is plugged into a normal TV, they only work when connected to a VGA monitor. Now that just doesn't make sense. If I didn't have a VGA box for my DC I would have been stuffed.

And another thing that happened earlier tonight while playing - the maracas suddenly stopped responding. After leave the DC alone for a while (30 minutes) , they still didn't work, so I swapped the Maracas over (left <-> right) and they worked again. This is rather strange, but again, it worked.

And I found a fan to keep the DC cool helps too.

Strange, but hey, all this makes it work. And while the game is decidedly average (at best) when played with a standard controller, with the Maracas it absolutely rocks. I love this game now.

 

[weirdocollector]

Get the original ones produced by SEGA: I got both sets (SEGA and Cha-Cha), and those cheap ones are really no match to the real thing.

 

[White Demon]

O RLY?

Why I won't buy the real thing: TOO BLOODY EXPENSIVE.
The damn things are so rare that the prices on ebay are simply too high for me to even think about it.

The Cha Chas work fine. No reason to change at the prices being asked for.

 

[weirdocollector]

I was only trying to help: sorry if it sounded offensive.

From what you've written it does not seem to me that "The Cha Chas work fine. No reason to change at the prices being asked for."

Surely the SEGA ones (if expensive) do work peferctly: I was just saying that.

 

[White Demon]

Sorry, no offense was taken. It is just that prices for the official Maracas were/are rather high. But I guess that's what is expected for something that is as rare as rocking horse shit.

Sure, they ain't perfect, but like I said before, while I can make the Cha Chas work, I'll stick with them.