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This fact can't be overstated. Trauma Center is not for those weak either of heart or mad gamer skills. Trauma Center will leave you in turns angry, swearing, infuriated, and mystified by how mortal man is supposed to succeed. There will be at least one point in the game, minimum, where you'll try to skewer the DS with the stylus and then set it on fire, followed up by attacking the twisted, charred remains with an axe. The thing to do at that time is turn off the DS and walk away. Trauma Center is the kind of game that needs practice, and learning how to properly manage all the responsibilities of the later surgeries isn't something that can be done in one sitting except by the most scarily focused of gamers. As aggravating as some of the seemingly impossible tasks are at first, coming back later and getting through after the brain has had a chance to process the technique is an incredibly rewarding experience.
Nothing on but re-runs
For those not ready to just toss it aside when the going gets tough, Trauma Center also has a Challenge mode that allows any previous surgery to be performed again. It's great for practice, although it does have the annoying feature whereby all the story bits are left in, including pre-surgery intro and any conversational bits that may happen in the middle. On the one hand it's good to be able to return to an earlier, easier version of a surgery and have a guided tour of what techniques are needed, on the other it can be aggravating to click away pointless text giving out useless information. A No-Talk option would have been appreciated, but clicking away the dialogue isn't really that large a chore.
The only other problem is that it's not clear enough in certain operations what needs to be done. The GUILT strain Tetari was the only really frustrating procedure, but every once in a while it took some experimenting in order to figure out how to proceed. In a few operations that was part of the challenge, but in others it seemed like the game couldn't be bothered to fill in the details. Thankfully it didn't happen often, but when time is part of the final operation score it's frustrating to poke around blindly.
Those few quibbles aside, Trauma Center is an amazingly fun and rewarding game for those willing to put in the huge amount of effort required to complete it. Derek and company's story is an engaging one, and the gameplay is varied, fun, and will challenge even the most grizzled gamer. Cutting people open and playing with their insides certainly sounds, on paper, like a macabre idea for a game, but in practice it turned out to be one of the most creative and entertaining experiences the DS has offered.
Media Download:
Accessorize your PC with these awesome Trauma Center wallpapers, courtesy of Atlus of Japan! Click on the links either selection according to your PC monitor's resolution.
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