Amateur Surgeon/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Base Breaker: Dwayne. While no doubt the guy is a contemptuous douchebag, the fans are divided if he's a Love to Hate Magnificent Bastard or just a plain bastard who needs to die. Hubris is also a similar case, though he's generally well-liked.
  • Complete Monster: Dwayne Pipe used to be Dr. Bleed's student, but grew bored of his teachings and showed his true colors by poisoning and killing his teacher's patients (two of them being Aureola's parents), leaving Bleed to take the fall. After revealing himself, he poisons Bleed and leaves him and Aureola to die without a single trace of remorse, only letting Alan live so he could see his loved ones die in front of him. In the sequel, he becomes a madman obsessed with revenge, ruining Alan's life by posing himself as the president, closing his hospitals and make him lose contact with his family. And if that wasn't enough, he not only forces his loyal aide Bradley to kill Alan after the guy saves his life, but once he discovers he's Alan's grandson, he lays a brutal beatdown on him, just to spite Alan further. In a series full of sympathetic criminals, Dwayne proved himself to be a sadistic, revenge-obsessed individual whose crimes stand out in an otherwise lighthearted game.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Despite being a Complete Monster, Dwayne Pipe has received this treatment for some, due to being a combination of Evil Is Cool and Magnificent Bastard.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Horrace d'Obscene. His status as the villain only gained more fans.
    • For the second game, Bradley.
  • Esoteric Happy Ending: The Happy Ending of Amateur Surgeon becomes this once known what will happen in Amateur Surgeon 2. Alleviated a bit since the sequel does have a true Happy Ending. This is similarly repeated in the fourth installment.
  • Foe Yay: There's some subtext between Alan and Dwayne. The fact that the latter is obsessed with him and they give nicknames to each other ("Pizza Boy" and "Douchebag" respectively) doesn't help in the least.
    • In the fourth game, Blue Hubris tries to insult clone!Bleed... by calling him "handsome". Yeah...
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment: The "pizza van" scene at the beginning of the first game. It was treated as a Running Gag throughout the game. After the reveal that Bleed stepping in front of the van was a deliberate Suicide Attempt on his part, the jokes stop being funny and become hard to watch. Doubles as a Cerebus Retcon.
    • The Happy Ending in the first Amateur Surgeon game becomes this once known what will happen to Alan in the second game. The same goes with the interquel.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: While Bleed's status as a formerly great surgeon who got disgraced by a horrible tragedy was awful enough, it becomes worse once known that Alan ended up suffering the same (although he was not so much disgraced as forced to retire). Bonus points for being ruined by the same man.
    • In the first game's Act 1, Bleed calls Alan a very talented young man, comparing him fondly to a student he once had. This hits hard come Act 3: Said student turns out to be Alan's exact opposite, a depraved bastard who used his teachings to poison and kill his patients, setting his downfall as a result. Moreover, said student poisons Bleed, almost dying for it if not for Alan's intervention. Wow...
  • It Gets Better: The first act for the first game was warming up and learning how to use things. Act 2 has more challenge, and combined with the plot getting more serious, it results in this.
  • It Was His Sled: As for ReGenerations, everybody knows Dwayne Pipe and Hubris d'Obscene are the main antagonists of the first three games (the fourth game doesn't have an antagonist)
  • Jerkass Woobie: Yeah, Aureola is quite harsh and poisoned some criminals, but she only does this because she lost her parents in the Old Hospital fiasco, thanks to "Douchebag" Dwayne, and wants to avenge their deaths out of grief. Knowing this, it's hard not to feel at least a bit sorry for her.
  • Love to Hate: Dear God, Dwayne. Fans just adore his douchebaggery.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Dwayne definitely crosses it when it's revealed he caused the Old Hospital fiasco and left Bleed to take the blame, ruining the latter's life.
    • Even then, he still kept his leather pants on. But when he beats up Bradley (a fan-favorite character, natch) until almost death in the sequel, he had crossed the point of no return.
    • In the third game, Hubris' Evil Plan is awful enough, but he crossed the line by poisoning Alan.
  • Play the Game, Skip the Story: Pretty much so. This is especially poignant in the third and fourth games, since the storylines are made wackier and convoluted in favor from more modern game mechanics and features.
  • Player Punch: The 2nd Dr. Bleed's surgery, if you fail to save him. Considering he's Alan's beloved mentor, this is outright a Tear Jerker.
  • Replacement Scrappy: Generally averted with Hubris d'Obscene. Despite being a literal clone of the previous Big Bad Dwayne Pipe, he's well-liked due to his Laughably Evil shtick and style. It helps he has enough depths and quirks to distinguish himself from Dwayne.
    • Similarly averted with 4's protagonist clone!Bleed, who manages to be a distinct character as well.
  • The Scrappy: Karl Puccino's level (not the character, though) is possibly the most despised one in the entire game for being the encarnation of Nintendo Hard and That One Boss. The fourth game's remake makes it a bit easier.
  • Seasonal Rot: If you care about the story, then the third and fourth games will be this, due to them being Denser and Wackier, the plot becoming unnecessarily convoluted, and the fact the protagonists Alan and Bleed are tossed aside in favor of new characters (though said new characters are generally well-received, downplaying this a bit).
  • Surprisingly Improved Sequel: The first game and the Christmas edition were very well-received, but the sequel removed every single Scrappy Mechanic and streamlined the controls to make for an even better experience. The third and fourth games only take this even further.
    • This only applies to the gameplay. As for the story, only the second game qualifies as this, since the third and fourth decline in storyline, as seen in Seasonal Rot above.
  • Strangled by the Red String: Justified with Alan and Aureola, who barely had hints of this yet they ended up as an Official Couple. It's justified because developing their relationship isn't the focus of the game (avoiding the dreaded Romantic Plot Tumor), and most of their relationship was developed off-screen between the first and second games.
  • That One Boss: The 2nd Dr. Bleed surgery. All the various hard-as-hell surgeries (which are usually made hard by Guide Dang It moments,) tend to be much easier once you know the trick behind them. The 2nd Dr. Bleed surgery, on the other hand, is a four-part Marathon Level against poison, fire, buried chunks of crystal, and finally a tapeworm that takes more hits from the battery to kill than the last tapeworm (and can quickly cause Bleed to...er...bleed out if you're not multitasking between cauterizing the cuts it makes and zapping it.) And you have just enough time to do it all quickly and flawlessly.
    • Napoleon Trotterski from the second game. It starts off easy enough, but suddenly ends with the player having to spell out words on a Speak 'N Spell. And if you aren't fast enough, the Speak 'N Spell suddenly explodes, leaving flames and burn marks that'll almost certainly obscure the screen and the keys, and if you try to put out the fire/heal the burn marks directly when they're on the keyboard, the game will assume you're hitting the keyboard instead and explode a second time. Not that you'll have any time to put out the fire anyway, because the words are coming faster and faster while you're trying to spell them out while not being able to see what the hell you're supposed to be spelling because the goddamn fire is in the way.
  • The Woobie: Dr. Bleed in the original, and Bradley in the sequel. Thanks a lot, Dwayne.
    • Iron Woobie: No matter what happens, Alan still keeps going despite the world's (or better said, Dwayne's) bullshit.