A revolutionary DS game has returned with a true sequel, and it sure beats the hell out of the previous game!
Gameplay --------- 9
Graphics ---------- 8
Sound ------------- 8
Tilt ----------------10
Lasting Value --- 9
Trauma Center 2 is a continuation of the first Trauma Center released for the DS years ago and also a sequel of the remake Second Opinion. TC2 fixes many of the problems that its predecessor had and improves on the game with various new features. Needless to say this game is a very fine and well crafted game and so far the best of the series.
The story of Trauma Center 2 takes place 3 years after the main character Derek Stiles stopped the bio-terrorism of Delphi with his helpful nurse Angie Thompson. Derek and Angie are stationed somewhere in Africa researching a certain outbreak that has occurred, however, due to complications back in the USA he is ordered to return only to find out that something horrible has happened. GUILT, the chiral disease that Delphi created, is mostly eliminated but there are Post-GUILT Symptoms that various patients are having. Derek must treat many patients suffering from PGS and face a new threat that soon arises.
Gameplay of TC2 can basically be broken down into the following steps. You choose a sub-chapter within the chapter of a game, go through multiple dialogue and character interaction, finally a problem arises and you operate on the patient. Now the game is broken up into 7 chapters with multiple sub-chapters in each chapter so there is a lot diversity of operations as well as numerous repeats; also another feature brought back from the previous TC games is the X missions which are set to Extreme difficulty only passing a few skilled players of the franchise. A problem that the previous TC had that this game does not is difficulty. You can progress through various operations on a normal difficulty or hard but if the operations later on get too hard then you can tone down the difficulty to normal or easy anytime you'd like. This gives players the option to choose and continue with a lower difficulty or persevere through the harder difficulties. The user interface of the game is well designed and everything is easy to locate and read though many players won't pay attention to this once they're concentrated on their patients. The operations are much diverse than the previous games with new sicknesses, new treatments, and new equipments. You have the defibrillator when the patient goes into cardiac arrest or you have the option to use the penlight when in darkness. TC2 takes various types of operations and equipment from Second Opinion and New Blood and integrates it well onto the portable version. However, even if you are offered a lot of new equipment it just means that the operations will be that much harder. The gameplay is difficult by far out of all the Trauma Center games but that shouldn't discourage you. The game does a good job of reading stylus commands on the touch screen and the way certain equipment is handled well. Skill and speed is what makes a good player in this game and once you completed a mission that seemed near impossible you will be rewarded greatly.
The graphics and art style have taken quite a different direction from the original Trauma Center on the DS to Second Opinion and to New Blood. Trauma Center had simple westernized anime graphics, Second Opinion had the true Japanese style finished anime graphics, and New Blood adapted from Second Opinion with the added orange ambient art styling. TC2 decided to take the Second Opinion's art style with the character design and it does a good job with it. Everything from the character shots to the scenery of a certain location looks well drawn and seems slick. When you are in surgery, the art style changes from the anime style to a more 3-D, realistic style. The art is improved from the DS predecessor but sometimes you wish that the graphics could've been more polished so that certain injuries or problems on the patient seem more apparent. Overall the graphics are decent if not good on the DS.
Sound is an important aspect within the game and is sometimes crucial if you are doing an operation that you've never done before. When you do an operation your nurse will say to you what tool to use and how to use it sometimes. This is very helpful especially when you don't know what to do on the patient. Another feature added to this version of TC that the previous DS version did not have before is voicing in the conversational parts of the game. While this is a nice and pretty feature for the game the creators went a little overboard with it. A lot of the vocal pieces are re-used and the emotion that the voices have don't seem to fit in certain situations and when you hear the same vocals 50 times it gets a bit repetitive, regardless it's a nice feature to have. The musical part of the game is very catchy and it still has the dramatic music, upbeat classical, and much more.
This game is built for the DS and if it would be on any other system it would be the Wii. Regardless this game maxes out the DS's potential to the max with its touch capability and the microphone. When you have a game that lets you operate on a patient with precision and accuracy from the DS's touch screen capability you know you have a great game.
This game begs to be replayed again and again and again. There is so much replay value to this game it will make you full. There is a total of 3 difficulty settings of each operation as well as the X(Extreme) difficulty missions of GUILT and multiple ranks for you to earn on each operation. The operations are graded by C, B, A, S, and XS, depending on how well you operated and how fast. All of this factors into you playing each operation over and over and over again until you have perfected every single surgical operation in the game.
Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 is a force to be reckoned with due to its intense gameplay. This is one of the most refined and amazingly designed game that is sure to have many fans addicted if not quaking in fear as they believe they are not good enough to play the game. With many of the features the game offers with various operations there is a lot of diversity, a lot of replayability, and a lot drama. This is one of those DS games you have to play and you won't regret having played it.
Overall -------------- 9.0