The Let's Play Archive

Trauma Center: Under the Knife

by World

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Original Thread: Shut Up Angie, aka, Let's Play Trauma Center: Under the Knife!

 

Introduction




What is Trauma Center: Under the Knife?
Trauma Center: Under the Knife (or "Caduceus: Super Surgical Operation" in Japan) was released in 2005 not long after the Nintendo DS. It was created by Atlus of the Shin Megami Tensei fame, with music by Shoji Meguro. While it enjoyed critical acclaim, its Atlus Hard difficulty turned away casual gamers and it sold relatively poorly. Still, it's one of the best puzzle titles on the DS, and one of my favourite games of all time. It is about a goofy (but well-intentioned) doctor named Derek Stiles and his lovely (but impossible to deal with) assistant Angie Thompson. They must, using the power of surgery and pagan magic, fight a terrorist cult loosely based on Aum Shinrikyo.

Aum Shinrikyo? Seriously?
Yes. It's directly mentioned and alluded to several times in this game, but was censored in the more popular Wii re-release, Trauma Center: Second Opinion. Which is probably why fans, and the developers, have completely forgotten about that. There are some other allusions to terrorism, but we'll get there when we get there.

What else is different from the Wii Release?
As I mentioned, the Wii version is censored in more ways than one. This game is generally darker in tone, gorier, and has more references to terrorism and violence. The ending is entirely different and was excised from the Wii version for its subject matter. However, it's also unpolished, unbalanced, and has a pretty lacklustre presentation compared to its counterpart. But if you've only played the Wii version or one of the sequels, it might be worth it to give this one a shot as well.

So is there a plot to this game? What's the rule on spoilers?
Despite the story being a little bare-bones to start, there actually is a rather extensive plot surrounding this game. Feel free to discuss gameplay, but do not discuss important story elements we have not seen in this game yet. This includes characters we have yet to encounter, names and functions of the fictional diseases, late-game level gimmicks, Second Opinion spoilers, etc. Plots and characters for the other games can be discussed and compared to this one as we proceed, but please keep all spoilers (ex. things not mentioned in the manuals) for them under spoiler tags.

This will be primarily a Screen Shot LP with videos supplementing the surgeries. I will be covering all the X-Missions because I hate myself. I will S Rank all the missions even if it kills me.

"Character portraits denote who is speaking."

"This is on-screen text." "This is on-screen dialogue of characters with no portraits."

All of my comments will go in itallics next to the call button.

Table of Contents


Story Mode

Chapter 1 - Derek Stiles
Missions S-Ranked: 6/6

Chapter 2 - Healing Touch
Missions S-Ranked: 6/6

Chapter 3 - Caduceus
Missions S-Ranked: 5/5

Chapter 4 - BioTerror
Missions S-Ranked: 7/7

Chapter 5 - It Never Ends
Missions S-Ranked: 6/6

Chapter 6 - Original Sin
Missions S-Ranked: 7/7

Total Story Missions S-Ranked: 37/37, 100%

X-Missions:

Missions S-Ranked: 7/7

Total Missions S-Ranked: 44/44, 100% Completion.


Character Information

Thread Fanworks

Chapter 4-9: Take some time to read this awesome write-up on regeneration qualities in GUILT and real-life organisms by Jeek!
Chapter 5-9 and 6-2: Jeek gives us some insight into a real-life worthy match for the final GUILT, and its importance in the medical field.
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