Review - Trauma Team; SMG2 reconsidered
Jun. 23rd, 2010 08:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainwatersparkWhew. Been busier lately than before; I was catapulted out of my relaxed, lazy vacation into doing PCR and running gels in a lab, in between painting my neighbor's deck. O_o
Before I get into anything else, I thought I should stop and say this: Super Mario Galaxy 2, all is forgiven! Well, almost. I finally (FINALLY) got the first 120 stars, had to beat Bowser the final time twice in the same day, and unlocked the Green Star challenge. Yes, the Green Stars have justified all of the groaning it took me to get up to that point--they require a sharp eye and ear to locate, and creative thinking in order to reach. I suspect I may be eating my words once I get down to the most annoying ones to get, but for now I'm really enjoying the scavenger hunt.
And now for Trauma Team.
The long and short of it is: I had a lot of fun with this game.
Story: The story, for the most part, does not disappoint. The first part of the game consists of the six individual character arcs, leading up to the seventh chapter, where the "real" story begins. Nearly each of the six doctors' stories was moving in some way, and I was pleasantly surprised by how compact and realistic on a personal level the story arcs were. Most of the characters learned something without having a 180 degree personality swap, which managed to keep what at first seemed like stock, cliché personalities fresh. The only exception, for me, was Tomoe Tachibana, who overall seemed a very bland character.
Playing the seventh chapter was like reading a well-written mystery to me: I wanted to keep going to get to the bottom of the mysterious disease. Despite Atlus's statement that Trauma Team wouldn't have sci-fi diseases, (minor spoiler) there is one. For me, though, it was more convincing than Stigma was in Trauma Center: New Blood, partly because you get to see what a nightmare things become when the pandemic begins.
There were a few things I was a bit unsatisfied with; namely, the lack of explanation about certain events and character backgrounds. The disease also pushed the limits of my disbelief a little, as well as a few other things that happened, but overall the story was good enough that none of those affected my enjoyment. The story is serious at times, but also very lighthearted at others, and ends on a truly heartwarming note.
The script varied a little in terms of quality, but overall it was quite good. Whereas Tomoe and CR-S01 had somewhat cliché lines, Gabriel Cunningham's dialogue was absolutely brilliant.
Gameplay: The six gameplay modes in Trauma Team definitely keep things fresh and interesting. Surgery is much the same as it has been in the Trauma Center games, though much more intricate this time around, and the absence of the timer is a major plus. The absence of bug-looking sci-fi viruses to chase down with a laser is an even bigger plus. First Response is fast-paced and fun. Personally, I didn't like Orthopedics and Endoscopy as much, though that's just my preference; Orthopedics requires exacting precision, and Endoscopy's controls initially feel a bit clunky and unintuitive, though it gets better over time and it's far from unmanageable. Diagnosis and Forensics are the biggest departures, and they're also among my favorites. Both require logic and rather resemble point and click/puzzle games. Add up all six together, and the game never becomes tiring.
Presentation: I really loved the comic book-style cutscenes. They're unique and very enjoyable to watch. The voice work, like the script, varies a little--Tomoe is a bit dull, Gabriel is too awesome for words XD--but is overall very good. The soundtrack is excellent and sets the mood very well, from laid-back jazz in Diagnostics to intense songs during Surgery and heartbreakingly melancholy piano pieces during sorrowful cutscenes. There are a few interesting bells and whistles as well, such as the evolution of the Orthopedics songs: when you first start, the music is plain and low key, but as you chain more and more actions together successfully, the music grows steadily more intense, adding a beat and electric guitar or other additional melodies. The increasing intensity of the music actually helps add to the player's motivation to keep going, because halting or making a mistake will make the music go back to its plain, original form.
So, to sum it all up, if you're unsure about whether or not to buy Trauma Team, buy it! It's fun, it has a decent length (it took me about 25 hours to run through the entire story once, factoring maybe 1-2 hours of replayed operations, and I've still got a bunch of medals to earn; in any case, that's a lot longer than Trauma Center: New Blood was), and the story and presentation are really quite unique.
Before I get into anything else, I thought I should stop and say this: Super Mario Galaxy 2, all is forgiven! Well, almost. I finally (FINALLY) got the first 120 stars, had to beat Bowser the final time twice in the same day, and unlocked the Green Star challenge. Yes, the Green Stars have justified all of the groaning it took me to get up to that point--they require a sharp eye and ear to locate, and creative thinking in order to reach. I suspect I may be eating my words once I get down to the most annoying ones to get, but for now I'm really enjoying the scavenger hunt.
And now for Trauma Team.
The long and short of it is: I had a lot of fun with this game.
Story: The story, for the most part, does not disappoint. The first part of the game consists of the six individual character arcs, leading up to the seventh chapter, where the "real" story begins. Nearly each of the six doctors' stories was moving in some way, and I was pleasantly surprised by how compact and realistic on a personal level the story arcs were. Most of the characters learned something without having a 180 degree personality swap, which managed to keep what at first seemed like stock, cliché personalities fresh. The only exception, for me, was Tomoe Tachibana, who overall seemed a very bland character.
Playing the seventh chapter was like reading a well-written mystery to me: I wanted to keep going to get to the bottom of the mysterious disease. Despite Atlus's statement that Trauma Team wouldn't have sci-fi diseases, (minor spoiler) there is one. For me, though, it was more convincing than Stigma was in Trauma Center: New Blood, partly because you get to see what a nightmare things become when the pandemic begins.
There were a few things I was a bit unsatisfied with; namely, the lack of explanation about certain events and character backgrounds. The disease also pushed the limits of my disbelief a little, as well as a few other things that happened, but overall the story was good enough that none of those affected my enjoyment. The story is serious at times, but also very lighthearted at others, and ends on a truly heartwarming note.
The script varied a little in terms of quality, but overall it was quite good. Whereas Tomoe and CR-S01 had somewhat cliché lines, Gabriel Cunningham's dialogue was absolutely brilliant.
Gameplay: The six gameplay modes in Trauma Team definitely keep things fresh and interesting. Surgery is much the same as it has been in the Trauma Center games, though much more intricate this time around, and the absence of the timer is a major plus. The absence of bug-looking sci-fi viruses to chase down with a laser is an even bigger plus. First Response is fast-paced and fun. Personally, I didn't like Orthopedics and Endoscopy as much, though that's just my preference; Orthopedics requires exacting precision, and Endoscopy's controls initially feel a bit clunky and unintuitive, though it gets better over time and it's far from unmanageable. Diagnosis and Forensics are the biggest departures, and they're also among my favorites. Both require logic and rather resemble point and click/puzzle games. Add up all six together, and the game never becomes tiring.
Presentation: I really loved the comic book-style cutscenes. They're unique and very enjoyable to watch. The voice work, like the script, varies a little--Tomoe is a bit dull, Gabriel is too awesome for words XD--but is overall very good. The soundtrack is excellent and sets the mood very well, from laid-back jazz in Diagnostics to intense songs during Surgery and heartbreakingly melancholy piano pieces during sorrowful cutscenes. There are a few interesting bells and whistles as well, such as the evolution of the Orthopedics songs: when you first start, the music is plain and low key, but as you chain more and more actions together successfully, the music grows steadily more intense, adding a beat and electric guitar or other additional melodies. The increasing intensity of the music actually helps add to the player's motivation to keep going, because halting or making a mistake will make the music go back to its plain, original form.
So, to sum it all up, if you're unsure about whether or not to buy Trauma Team, buy it! It's fun, it has a decent length (it took me about 25 hours to run through the entire story once, factoring maybe 1-2 hours of replayed operations, and I've still got a bunch of medals to earn; in any case, that's a lot longer than Trauma Center: New Blood was), and the story and presentation are really quite unique.
