Trauma Center: Second Opinion injects fresh life into surgery simulation with intuitive Wii controls. Wielding the Wii Remote as a scalpel adds a layer of immersion that makes suturing wounds and battling illnesses feel tense and engaging. The story, though delivered in a simple visual novel style, keeps things interesting with medical intrigue and a healthy dose of cheese. While the core gameplay loop can get repetitive, the diverse medical scenarios and unlockable challenges provide a good amount of content.
when you’re naturally a little bit shaky playing this game is basically like the dark souls of the operation boardgame
Hard
short but fun and hard. i wish it could come back somehow.
This review contains spoilers
This game was 100% made for the Wii. I know it's a remake of a Nintendo DS game, but it controls just so perfectly (more or less) with a wii remote and nunchuk, the controls are ingenious. The plot is 90% the same as Under the Knife, which I did slander a bit for being repetitive at points and for writing women fairly poorly (I still rated it four stars though), and the same concept applies here: once you get into the grit of doing GUILT missions, that's basically the rest of the game from there on out. A big difference here however is the last chapter (before the X missions) is based on a trip to Europe and dealing with a GUILT outbreak there, including mutated versions of what we've already fought, and multiple strains at the same time in patients.
- Mutated Deftera actually kind of sucks and is just obnoxious with the blood pools
- Mutated Tetarti (not the same one as in UtK2) is a great addition which makes an otherwise easy GUILT strain much more deadly, and frankly it adds some great variety
- Mutated Savato is basically a numbers increase but honestly it's a much more appropriate thematic end to the series than the boat chapter was, and I even liked the boat chapter in UtK!
..speaking of UtK2, why does UtK2 not reference this game at all? I think it's a bit of an odd choice to give Derek and Dr. Hoffman GUILT and then just never reference at any point in UtK2 that they could be afflicted with PGS like the other patients and characters that have it. That's neither here nor there but I find it weird.
Back on track, the other thing that SO majorly diverges from UtK in is that it has a Z-route featuring Naomi Kimishima, who is an excellent character and has fun missions that serve almost as a prototype to some of the ones in New Blood. I wish her route was more fleshed out, but I really like what the game gave us a lot and it serves as a good break from the endless GUILT missions. Chef's kiss.
Ultimately, SO isn't that much different from UtK, but it feels polished and really achieves what it set out to do, which is to make a great remake of the DS game on the Wii.
- Mutated Deftera actually kind of sucks and is just obnoxious with the blood pools
- Mutated Tetarti (not the same one as in UtK2) is a great addition which makes an otherwise easy GUILT strain much more deadly, and frankly it adds some great variety
- Mutated Savato is basically a numbers increase but honestly it's a much more appropriate thematic end to the series than the boat chapter was, and I even liked the boat chapter in UtK!
..speaking of UtK2, why does UtK2 not reference this game at all? I think it's a bit of an odd choice to give Derek and Dr. Hoffman GUILT and then just never reference at any point in UtK2 that they could be afflicted with PGS like the other patients and characters that have it. That's neither here nor there but I find it weird.
Back on track, the other thing that SO majorly diverges from UtK in is that it has a Z-route featuring Naomi Kimishima, who is an excellent character and has fun missions that serve almost as a prototype to some of the ones in New Blood. I wish her route was more fleshed out, but I really like what the game gave us a lot and it serves as a good break from the endless GUILT missions. Chef's kiss.
Ultimately, SO isn't that much different from UtK, but it feels polished and really achieves what it set out to do, which is to make a great remake of the DS game on the Wii.
yea i just broke my wii remote, fire game
Decent enough game but I think the DS version is better from what I played of it. Suturing in this version consists of randomly swiping the wiimote instead of making actual stitches, and the triangle "parasites" are bullshit. A real shame as I was decently invested in the story and gameplay.
this is ridiculous but i like it
An anime take on a surgeon simulator that controls surprisingly well for the motion controls and nunchuck adapter despite having a steep climb in difficulty mainly towards the end. The console limitations may make it look more subpar than it actually is and its thrilling story is very well accompanied by its soundtrack. It calls for a remake at this point.
This review contains spoilers
This game was a nostalgia bomb to play it again, but having played it recently I noticed a couple of things that didn't make it top tier.
For one, the story was both full of really hard hitting topics, like a girl wanting to commit suicide and the idea of whenever it's ok to use anesthesia. But they never delve too far with it, and the topic is over in just one surgery/level. It's too fast and jarring for it to really sink in. Also, there was a whole section cut out of the game because of it being "too much" and the whole section is just a bunch of text to read, which is really unsatisfying, and they reference it later as if youve to know what happened when we couldn't.
Half of the characters are one and done, or don't really get much of a fleshing out to really matter half the time.
The gameplay is one of the strongest points in the series. The ability that you can suture, transplant and save virtual lives is still a cool thing to do with motion controls, even all these years later. Sometimes the difficulty swings are horrendous, but for the most part it's still fun to casually inject litres of the green juice that keeps the patients alive.
The soundtrack is pretty solid, but half of it is forgettable until you hear it again.
For one, the story was both full of really hard hitting topics, like a girl wanting to commit suicide and the idea of whenever it's ok to use anesthesia. But they never delve too far with it, and the topic is over in just one surgery/level. It's too fast and jarring for it to really sink in. Also, there was a whole section cut out of the game because of it being "too much" and the whole section is just a bunch of text to read, which is really unsatisfying, and they reference it later as if youve to know what happened when we couldn't.
Half of the characters are one and done, or don't really get much of a fleshing out to really matter half the time.
The gameplay is one of the strongest points in the series. The ability that you can suture, transplant and save virtual lives is still a cool thing to do with motion controls, even all these years later. Sometimes the difficulty swings are horrendous, but for the most part it's still fun to casually inject litres of the green juice that keeps the patients alive.
The soundtrack is pretty solid, but half of it is forgettable until you hear it again.
Remake of the first Trauma Center game, and works surprisingly well on the Wii. Same praises sung for the original are sung here, with improved music, visuals, and extra content to compliment it. One of the best Wii games, easy.
Considering this was a launch title for the Wii, it's remarkably accurate in following your Wii remote. I start with this, because that's going to be one of the deal breakers with nearly any Wii game, so this crosses the most basic hurdle.
A surgery sim by way of anime, Trauma Center Second Opinion, makes medicine make sense to layman enough to be very easily accessible, despite the constant medical jargon being thrown around. The entire story is told in static visual novel stills, with no voice acting, and while I don't think it does the game any favors, the soundtrack is solid, and the background art pretty to look at. There's always a sense of comfort I get from playing this game, the low key nature of the story scenes is an excellent break from the sometimes overwhelming difficulty of the surgery. The narratives contained within are universally simple but a chance to see a group of people being shonen about murdering an evil sentient virus that builds a spiderweb or some shit, is one that doesn't come up often in media in general, let alone video games
And this is just about the perfect console for Trauma Center, with the series as a whole still being one of the shining examples of creative use of the motion controls, and the series never even needed Wii Motion Plus to do it. With the razor thin margins you can get by on the hard difficulties in later missions, even something as simple as the Wiimote's pointer functionality becomes uncannily compelling, forcing me to actively watch for any shaking as I carefully reattach a vein or laser a burrowing virus-snake. Later missions forced me down from hard on a handful of occasions, but there is no restriction on changing the difficulty, so getting stuck at a certain part of the story is generally not an issue. Good luck with those X missions though, shit's locked at Xtreme difficulty, lol.
The gameplay is backed up by a banger of an OST, there aren't too many overall tracks, but all of them are good, and all of them pull their weight in setting the moods during the campaign. There's a huge change in feel between Hope Hospital and Cadeceus, and it's solely through a change of a handful of stills and music. I love how much of my imagination I need to use to flesh out the story, while still being given some very basic anchor points.
You can find this game pretty cheap for now, so I'd definitely get it and the rest of the series while the getting is good. It's about a 15 hour long campaign for a first time through, accounting for failing a lot, which is pretty good bang for your buck.
A surgery sim by way of anime, Trauma Center Second Opinion, makes medicine make sense to layman enough to be very easily accessible, despite the constant medical jargon being thrown around. The entire story is told in static visual novel stills, with no voice acting, and while I don't think it does the game any favors, the soundtrack is solid, and the background art pretty to look at. There's always a sense of comfort I get from playing this game, the low key nature of the story scenes is an excellent break from the sometimes overwhelming difficulty of the surgery. The narratives contained within are universally simple but a chance to see a group of people being shonen about murdering an evil sentient virus that builds a spiderweb or some shit, is one that doesn't come up often in media in general, let alone video games
And this is just about the perfect console for Trauma Center, with the series as a whole still being one of the shining examples of creative use of the motion controls, and the series never even needed Wii Motion Plus to do it. With the razor thin margins you can get by on the hard difficulties in later missions, even something as simple as the Wiimote's pointer functionality becomes uncannily compelling, forcing me to actively watch for any shaking as I carefully reattach a vein or laser a burrowing virus-snake. Later missions forced me down from hard on a handful of occasions, but there is no restriction on changing the difficulty, so getting stuck at a certain part of the story is generally not an issue. Good luck with those X missions though, shit's locked at Xtreme difficulty, lol.
The gameplay is backed up by a banger of an OST, there aren't too many overall tracks, but all of them are good, and all of them pull their weight in setting the moods during the campaign. There's a huge change in feel between Hope Hospital and Cadeceus, and it's solely through a change of a handful of stills and music. I love how much of my imagination I need to use to flesh out the story, while still being given some very basic anchor points.
You can find this game pretty cheap for now, so I'd definitely get it and the rest of the series while the getting is good. It's about a 15 hour long campaign for a first time through, accounting for failing a lot, which is pretty good bang for your buck.
I don't know if anyone else did this but I played "two players" with a friend with split controllers, it was fun but I remember the DS version being better.
A very fascinating remake of the first game that works far better on Wii than anyone would've given it any credit for. Thanks to its massively overhauled visual style, smooth gameplay and new content, its a game worth checking out; even if it carries over a lot of the same issues as the original.
this game is literally unplayable on the wii
A remake of the original DS game. I like a lot of it, though I do think the motion controls are little more finicky than the original's touch screen controls.
extremely fun game that was forgotten to time
I did everything but the X cases because I'd rather not have carpal
I WILL SAVE THIS PATIENT
I would be a terrible doctor
The story jumps so fast and all over the place that you never have time to understand what's going on before it ends. They cut out the entire ending chapter of the original DS version to completely gloss over it in 2 paragraphs of text and rob the story of any sense of cohesion. I also found a lot of the levels very tedious and repetitive, and it might just be my nunchuk but it felt like it was impossible to select the tools positioned at 45 degree angles half the time. The base mechanics are solid enough and I'm glad this game crawled so Trauma Team could learn to run but I am never touching this again lmao
I recently stole the identity of a doctor and have heart surgery scheduled for tomorrow. Now with no prior medical training, I think this game has prepared me! Thank you Dr. Stiles!
silly rage inducing doctor game that ATLUS SHOULD FUCKING BRING BACK GODDAMN IT
Was a fun enough time. The difficulty gets a bit crazy near the end though. At first I thought this game was going to be a grounded surgery simulator but the moment I discovered that its less like that and more of a sentient virus blasting game I was able to get into the vibe that it's trying to give. It's definitely some wacky anime doctor nonsense, so play if you like that kinda thing.
Wow! This is really hard with pointer controls!
I really need to try the DS version instead
I really need to try the DS version instead
One of the few games I cracked in half but I don’t regret shit. I did get another disk to beat it tho lmao
I gotta say, this game is pretty dang good.
The game is a kinda surgeon-simulator-but-it-feels-like-an-action-game by Atlus about a medical group called Caudacous fighting a bio-terrorist plot to kill the world, with the protagonist, Derek Stiles, being a surgeon with the mysterious Healing touch ability, the ability to move his hand at supersonic speeds when treating a patient. The story, while simple, is quite entertaining, and provides numerous instances for unique surgeries.
The graphics look alright. It's a Wii launch title, so I wasn't expecting much. The internal organs look fine, and the 2D art look pretty good, but the outside of bodies look overly simple, especially when they don't change when operating on major characters.
The music's pretty good. he song selection isn't large, and not much of the music I'd go out of my way to listen to, but it's fitting and is still nice to listen to during the game.
Now for the gameplay. It's a surgeon simulator that, lets just say, takes many liberties with realism. At first, you're dealing with normal patients, but by the second half of the game, nearly every patient is infected with GUILT, which is pretty much just a bio-weapon disease. It's extremely fast paces and very, very, very fucking difficult near the end of the game. It took me about 3-4 hours to finish the second-to-last mission. Still, the game never feels unfair, and when it gets too tough, you can always choose to lower the difficulty or use the Healing Touch (Though triggering the Healing Touch is rather finnicky). It's mostly hard because the game does not understand that precision is not the Wii Remote's strong point, though for the most part, despite being a launch title, the motion controls are done tastefully.
Overall, the game is very fun, very difficult, and an overall fun time. It's not going to change your life or anything, but it will provide a solid challenge for 13 hours, and is a definite recommend for any Wii owner.
8/10
The game is a kinda surgeon-simulator-but-it-feels-like-an-action-game by Atlus about a medical group called Caudacous fighting a bio-terrorist plot to kill the world, with the protagonist, Derek Stiles, being a surgeon with the mysterious Healing touch ability, the ability to move his hand at supersonic speeds when treating a patient. The story, while simple, is quite entertaining, and provides numerous instances for unique surgeries.
The graphics look alright. It's a Wii launch title, so I wasn't expecting much. The internal organs look fine, and the 2D art look pretty good, but the outside of bodies look overly simple, especially when they don't change when operating on major characters.
The music's pretty good. he song selection isn't large, and not much of the music I'd go out of my way to listen to, but it's fitting and is still nice to listen to during the game.
Now for the gameplay. It's a surgeon simulator that, lets just say, takes many liberties with realism. At first, you're dealing with normal patients, but by the second half of the game, nearly every patient is infected with GUILT, which is pretty much just a bio-weapon disease. It's extremely fast paces and very, very, very fucking difficult near the end of the game. It took me about 3-4 hours to finish the second-to-last mission. Still, the game never feels unfair, and when it gets too tough, you can always choose to lower the difficulty or use the Healing Touch (Though triggering the Healing Touch is rather finnicky). It's mostly hard because the game does not understand that precision is not the Wii Remote's strong point, though for the most part, despite being a launch title, the motion controls are done tastefully.
Overall, the game is very fun, very difficult, and an overall fun time. It's not going to change your life or anything, but it will provide a solid challenge for 13 hours, and is a definite recommend for any Wii owner.
8/10
outdoes the original ds game in every way, from visuals to soundtrack to gameplay
trauma center no wii
awesome, unique game with a surprisingly engaging story