Trauma Center - Under the Knife 2

Who didn't love the first Trauma Center: Under the Knife for the Nintendo DS? Taking the role of a professional surgeon and opening and cutting bodies treating different wounds for all kind of patients was really fun, not to mention using your stylus to take control of all of his tools to toy around while operating.

The job of a doctor never ends though, and Dr. Stiles is now back with another epic adventure! Will it be as good as the first game? Maybe better, maybe worse. Find out the diagnosis in this disease of a review! (Don’t worry, there won’t be any more horrible puns)

Console: Nintendo DS
Release Date: JP: August 7, 2008; NA: July 1, 2008
Publisher: Atlus
Developer: Atlus, Vanguard
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: T

With new characters and an extension to the last game's storyline, this title has a lot to offer. Better graphics and styled art are extras to this game that will make it feel better. But keeping the excellent gameplay the same way and is one of the stongest points in it.

Our hero Dr. Stiles and his nurse companion Angie are sent to Costigar, a small region in Africa that’s currently at war. Their role is to help out and treat wounded victims in a small camp. However, they are shortly summoned to Caduceus, the American Hospital they work for. Back in the US, they are informed about the side effects of GUILT; a mortal disease they had to eradicate in the first game. This is called the Post-GUILT Syndrome, or PGS for short.

Everything is much the same as in Trauma Center: Under the Knife. However, a few style changes were made. During dialogue, a background image will appear on the top screen where the conversation is taking place. These images represent the area you are in at the moment, like an operation room or hospital lobby. Characters' portraits show up depending on who's talking at the moment, and something that will instantly get your attention if you played the first game is their complete style change. Characters now have a more anime-ish style, which makes them look, well, more cute. This was first seen in Trauma Center: Second Opinion for the Wii, though.

This is actually the same guy!

While on an operation, however, not much has changed. Patients are in 3D and have nice illumination effects. These are really nice, as it will make it feel like a real operation room. Everything else, such as tumors, infections or lacerations are made from sprites. It looks pretty nice (maybe that's not the best way to describe a bloody, strange-fluid-infested operation), but it's not that impressive either.

The game is entirely touch based, meaning all the action will take place on the lower screen. It's also divided by chapters, where you have to finish one to unlock the next one, and unlike Trauma Center: Under the Knife, you can revisit the entire chapter anytime you want and not just the operation in it.

There's not much to do while you are not operating in the game; you just see the different dialogues in that chapter. However, the game really starts on the operations.
Here you will be given the patient's diagnosis and information as well as the objectives for the operation. Then, when the operation really starts, you have to make use of the different tools at your disposal to perform the procedure. Nurse Angie will aid you through the procedure by giving you tips or just telling you what to do. The fun part about this is that you can't just randomly start using your tools to operate. Every disease has a different treatment, meaning you will have to learn them in order to operate as quickly as possible. Dr. Stiles has a useful blessing for these situations, luckily. This is called the Healing Touch, which is activated by drawing a star on the touch screen. By doing this, time will slow down for a brief moment, letting you operate on different parts that would've been impossible to operate in real time.

Each stage has a time limit, and if you fail to operate in the given time, you'll also fail the operation, leading to a Game Over. Not only you will have to pay attention to the timer, you will also have to keep an eye on the patient's vitals - because once they reach zero, it's also a Game Over.

Upon finishing a stage, you are given a score and a rank depending on said score. There are different ways to get a high score, but the best way is to perform Chains, which you achieve by completing different steps in a row. For example, using the syringe to inject a neutralizer in a tumor, cutting it with the scalpel, using the forceps to remove it, putting a membrane over it and then using the antibiotic gel to cure it WITHOUT MISSING will score you 5 chains, as it's 5 steps. The chain count is reset every time you miss. We can call them combos, so to speak.

Gathering previous tunes with new ones, this game's soundtrack is really enjoyable. Most songs have a jazzy tune and are really nice. What makes them even better is the context they are being played in. A quiet, happy song for friendly chats or a suspenseful feel for stressful moments. The last one helps you concentrate in operations and makes them more exciting. While being scarce, voice acting is also present in this game. Characters have a few catchphrases they use depending on the situation, even if it has nothing to do with what they are really saying.

Enjoy this gameplay video:

YouTube- Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 Gameplay

With more than 40 different operations, this game will keep you busy for a while. Once you finish all of them, you can try different difficulty levels or try to get a better ranking at previous procedures, both being a good challenge. The lack of multiplayer is a great flaw in this game; it would've been nice to perform collab operations like in previous games or just compete against a friend.

A game full of amazing and exasperating moments alike. Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 is a really good game if you are up for a challenge; and if you've played the previous games, you will notice that this one doesn't disappoint. A nice, different and original game to have in your collection, don't miss it!