Introduction

Series LPs:
Cherrydoom's Under the Knife (Forums Archive)
Second Opinion (LP Archives)

Intro Video (Uploaded by Atlus, not me)

The Game

Released in 2007, New Blood is the sequel to 2006's Trauma Center: Second Opinion for Wii, which is, in turn, a remake of Trauma Center: Under the Knife for the DS. The original game/games received most of their criticism from repeat operations, typically ones that had nothing to do with reality, and extreme difficulty. As such, New Blood does a little to address these concerns. The variety of operations was vastly expanded, co-op play was added, and the difficulty balanced was noticeably improved. Atlus didn't forget the slightly masochistic portion fanbase, either, as "better-balanced" was never taken to mean "easy." New Blood is totally aware that you can play any operation with a friend, and it is unrelentingly brutal on the hardest difficulties.

So, naturally, it's my favourite.

Plotwise, all you need to know is that New Blood takes place 10 years after Second Opinion, in which rookie surgeon Derek Stiles and his bitchy companion Angie battled a man-made virus called GUILT using medical superpowers and cutting-edge technology. The English-language version pretends it's taking place in America, but is pretty obviously supposed to be Japan. In New Blood, even the Japanese version takes place in America.

At least a little familiarity with the original game is going to be helpful, as I won't be covering the in-game tutorials or explaining mechanics in as much detail as I did for my Second Opinion LP. I'll certainly give enough that you can understand what's going on, though, and you can read or skim the early updates of my Second Opinion LP here.

Cast

I'd love to include the special info present in the manual, but I live in Canada and the whole thing is in French! You'd think I could remember some after 5 years of it in grade school.

Markus Vaughn
A sassy surgeon who looks remarkably like Greg Kasal from the other games. He's working in a small town in Alaska at the moment, despite his considerable talent. Markus is one of the few people gifted with the exceedingly anime special ability called the Healing Touch, which allows its user to unlock tremendous surgical ability. Markus is the first of our player-characters.

Voiced by Troy Baker, also known as Yuri Lowell, Slimer in the new Ghostbusters game and about half of the Blackwater guys in Prototype.

Valerie Blaylock
The second playable surgeon. Valerie followed Markus to Alaska to learn about his Healing Touch and play the straight man for all of his jokes. She, too, is a skilled surgeon.

Voiced by Tara Platt, also known as Setsuka in Soul Calibur and multiple characters in the Desperate Housewives video game.

Elena Salazar
An old patient of Markus'. She became a nurse to help people, and ends up working with our pair after a series of wacky circumstances, so get used to her. She's basically the anti-Angie, as she will not shut up about how great the doctors are.

Voiced by Karen Strassman, who was in an episode of House once.

And now, it's time for the second surgical soiree in Trauma Center: New Blood!

The Let's Play Archive

Trauma Center: New Blood

by Opendork

Introduction

Table of Contents

The Game