Trauma Center (series): Difference between revisions

Simulation game for the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii consoles (released in Japan as ''Choushittou Caduceus'', "Caduceus: The Great Surgical Operation"), where you get to save the world's health, one person at a time.

 

 

Despite the unusual premise, at the beginning things seem pretty mundane. You are guided by the motherly Nurse Mary and later her younger, spunkier, stricter replacement Nurse Angie in treating injuries and removing tumors, procedures made easier by the advanced medical technology at your disposal. One day, however, Derek is the only doctor available to perform an operation far more difficult than he can handle. As he frantically tries to concentrate, Derek feels time slowing down and miraculously manages to save the patient. He soon learns that he is an heir to an ability called "The Healing Touch", thought to originate from Asclepius, the ancient Greek god of medicine.

 

This series has a [[Trauma Center (Video Game)/Characters|character sheet]]. Put tropes related to the characters there.

* [[Acceptable Breaks From Reality]]: The game makes no attempt whatsoever to portray surgery realistically.

** Developers aimed for more realism in ''Trauma Team''. The result was less [[Bullet Time]] and killer parasites, but more ghosts, flying superheroes, cell phone calls from dead people, and [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|teleporting ninja butlers]].

* [[Contest Winner Cameo]]: The winner of a contest at E3 2009, Charlie Malone, was made into a patient in ''Trauma Team''.

* [[Continuity Nod]]: A few in ''Trauma Team''; notably, Esha notes that one patient's spinal tumors were deemed inoperable by Concordia, and Naomi remarks that she didn't expect to find someone else with the hands of a god at Resurgam if the player earns an XS rank on the stage where she assists Tomoe.

** For general surgery, the tools get divided before the mission starts.

** For the EMT missions, each player gets every other patient.

* [[Deadly Delivery]]: There's a serial murderer in ''Trauma Team'' who {{spoiler|kills her victims by masquerading as a postal worker, then "delivering" a package containing a hidden bomb.}}

* [[Diving Save]]: {{spoiler|Little Guy tackles Naomi when the bombs strapped to a suspect goes off.}}

** In some operations, saving the patient as quickly as possible will not score you enough points for an S or XS rank. You will have to allow for more problems to occur to heal them and receive extra points.

** Under The Knife 2 throws this out in favor of having a set of bonuses that you must get 2000 points from in order to get the S or XS rank. If it says to do something at least X times, there is typically exactly X of that task for you to do. In short: doing perfect WILL get you an S or XS rank... [[Fission Mailed|except when mailing your fission]], [[Guide Dang It|in which you MUST do a certain number of actions in a certain amount of time without any misses before ending the mission]].

** Hank's suicidal patient Claire would also be one, [[Older Than They Look|if she wasn't over 20]].

* [[Expy]]: In Trauma Team, after Alyssa {{spoiler|nearly gets killed by a bomb and}} is sent to Resurgam, the bandages and hospital gown makes her look like Nanako from Persona 4.

* [[Fan Service]]: Usually avoided with tasteful placing of the patients bodies or a blanket in the right place. Still, Dr. Myers operation for Paraskevi definitely qualifies, what with the camera starting out right on her exposed (undetailed) breasts before zooming in on her chest cavity. She is significantly reduced in cup size and more tastefully covered in the ''Second Opinion'' version of the same operation.

** So, how are you introduced to Reina Mayuzumi? A shot that loving details every sexy curve of her body, complete with heaving cleavage shot specifically provided in its own boxout.

* [[Foreshadowing]]: In the First 'First Response' scenario, you end up with someone who suddenly starts having convulsions after you treat her wounds. {{spoiler|She has a black bruise mark on her neck. It could be mistaken for a sort of burn or soot marks if you're not looking at it directly. The bruise and the convulsions are BOTH symptoms of the Rosalia virus. The weirdness of it all states 'Yep, Trauma Team has a super virus of it's own'.}}

** Also, of all the forensics levels, the very first is the only one that doesn't involve inexplicable madness or an unknown disease that remains so well after the case is solved.

** [[The Hero]]: Gabriel or CR-S01

** [[The Lancer]]: CR-S01 or Maria

** ''Trauma Team'' has an operation where your endoscope's flashlight fails. You have to navigate by the glowing gates used as navigational aids in your HUD.

** Also occurs in-universe in ''Trauma Team'' during some orthopedic missions, when the guideline for cutting artificial bone malfunctions.

** ''Trauma Team'' has you listen to a recording of whatever doctor you were playing as giving up on medicine forever... except in the final chapter, where you get to hear {{spoiler|Rosalia}}'s tormented lament over all that's gone wrong.

** {{spoiler|In the fourth case, when Naomi sends a guitar broken by one of the bomber's bombs to be analyzed by Little Guy, he realizes it is a musical legend's guitar valued at about $100,000. Needless to say, he also isn't amused. (And yes, he literally says the trope name.)}}

* [[Last Minute Hookup]]: {{spoiler|1=It's heavily implied that Derek and Angie get together in ''Under the Knife 2'''s ending, if the ending epilogue to the first game wasn't enough.}}

* [[Made of Iron]]: Valerie's Healing Touch makes the patient into this - no matter what happens, be it colossal screwups, stab wounds, or a frustrated player [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|shanking the crap out of them with the scalpel]], for the next 30 seconds or so, their vitals will not move at all. Of course, it's possible to shank the patient with no repercussions anyway (aside from the usual vital loss that comes with the scalpel's use), as long as you're in the right mission and/or you don't hold it down for too long.

** Also, in-universe, Tomoe's father in ''Trauma Team''. {{spoiler|When he needs to be operated on, they can't inject him because the needle not only fails to penetrate his skin, ''it bends in half''. They also require a ''katana'' to open an airway to insert the endoscope.}}

* [[Magical Defibrillator]]: All over the place. The first two games feature Derek using his hands to massage patients' heart when they undergo cardiac arrest, which is more or less the right procedure, but the later games regularly shock patients undergoing cardiac arrest with a flat-line ECG back into life with them. In a particularly jarring scene in Trauma Team, CR-S01 orders his support not to touch a patient who was undergoing ventricular fibrillation (which is when you're actually supposed to use a defibrillator...), only to whip it out after the patient started going into cardiac arrest. Even worse, a huge deal is made of the fact that they can't use the defibrillator on a flatlining patient while the power is out. In the interim, CR-S01 is seen giving the patient chest compressions, which is what you're supposed to do for a flatline.

** In what might be an example of [[The Coconut Effect]] in action, Under The Knife uses a defibrillator correctly, and cardiac massage is explicitly the go-to technique to deal with a flatline. Second Opinion changes these operations to incorrectly apply the defibrillator instead.

** The trailer for ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry60m3ZBmLE Trauma Team]'' takes this and runs with it.

* [[Musical Nod]]: ''Trauma Team'' has several nods to music from ''Second Opinion'', usually when Naomi is involved. They include a somber piano rendition of ''Second Opinion'''s main theme and a piano rendition of its final boss theme {{spoiler|when you stop her heart in the last operation.}}

* [[Nietzsche Wannabe]]: Adam. Yet he also thinks that he's serving God- he even goes so far as to identify GUILT with the Seven Plagues of Revelation and proclaims he will smile as Derek and friends burn in Hell for opposing the Divine Plan.

* [[Nintendo Hard]]: It's an [[Atlus]] game, what did you [[That One Boss/Atlus|expect]]. They finally had to cave and add an easy mode in the sequels. It'll still break your arm. It seems that many of the operations in ''New Blood'' were designed around having two players, ''and'' both Healing Touches available...

* [[No Gear Level]]: The games occasionally throw a curveball by limiting access to one of your crucial instruments. The epitome of this is an operation in New Blood where the player is given no stabilizer and a VERY limited supply of antibiotic gel - in other words, no way to increase the patient's vitals in an operation that requires techniques that damage the vitals slightly in the process. Valerie even comments afterward she'd never appreciated the stabilizer so much.

* [[No Name Given]]: The surgeon character of ''Trauma Team'' is known throughout the game only by his prisoner number, CR-S01. Japanese materials note his actual name as {{spoiler|Erhardt Muller}}.

** Averted for sure in the final mission of ''Second Opinion'': Fail there and Dr. Kasal will comment that {{spoiler|"That's enough! Dr. Hoffmann... will be missed."}}

*** The First Response missions in ''Trauma Team'' seem to avert this as well. In fact, you can lose multiple patients. (Up to 4 without failing, anyway, depending on the mission.)

** Don't forget the [[Ominous Pipe Organ]] in both of {{spoiler|Cardia's}} themes and {{spoiler|Alethia's}} theme (albeit not nearly as much as in {{spoiler|Cardia's}}).

* [[One of Our Own]]: Happens several times.

* [[Open Heart Dentistry]]: In Episode 6 of ''New Blood'', {{spoiler|the trio is given a dog named Pepita that they become attached to. When Pepita is shot, saving the trio's lives in Episode 6-4, our doctors take it upon themselves to attempt to operate on it. [[Chekhov's Skill|Good thing they saw an operation being performed on a dog back at the beginning of Episode 4-2, huh?]]}}

** More than a little justified, though. {{spoiler|The entire operation is pretty much first aid, with the exception of the defib - just removing bullets from the skin and suturing.}}

* [[Rank Inflation]]: Not only is there the S rank, but ''Second Opinion'' introduced the XS rank, available only on Hard and [[Harder Than Hard]].

* [[Real Is Brown]]: The graphics designers worked hard to invert this for ''Trauma Team'', and based the majority of their design work on the theme of vibrant colors.

* [[Science Hero]]: The main character is part of an organization dedicated to advancing medical science enough to eradicate disease, while the bad guys are a [[Knight Templar]] organization who believe that medicine violates God's will by denying humans "the blessing of death".

* [[Sequel Difficulty Spike]]: Inverted with ''Trauma Team'', which alleviates a lot of the pressure that made its predecessors so difficult. But don't think for a second that you're on easy street.

** Do note that North Americans are not shafted out of this, as this art is used for the cover of the NA instruction manual as well. [[Sexy Packaging|Sexy Instructions]]?

* [[Ship Tease]]: A ''lot'' for Derek and Angie during the extra content of ''Second Opinion''. From blatant (Angie being so hysterical when {{spoiler|Derek is infected with GUILT}} that Weaver flat-out asks why she hasn't said anything to him yet) to subtle (the final shot of the credits is {{spoiler|a living room/study with a corkboard over a desk. The board has pictures of everyone at Caduceus except Derek, so it's probably his place. All his coworkers are at the edge of the board, except Angie, whose picture is front and center.}})

** Chapter 3-8 of ''Second Opinion'' is titled "[[Snakes On a Plane|Caduceus on a Plane]]". The symbol of Caduceus ''is'' a caduceus: two snakes wrapped around a staff.

** Not to mention the fact that the person you have to help in chapter 7-1 of ''New Blood'' is named after [[The Ditz|Rose]] and [[The Casanova|Blanche]] from ''[[The Golden Girls (TV)|The Golden Girls]]''.

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1d_ct6nI_8 The opening sequence of New Blood] is probably a shout out to the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6zJ9dEwNek opening credits of House.]

* [[Shown Their Work]]: The planner of the Diagnosis mode in ''Trauma Team'' put an enormous amount of effort into doing research, to the point at which staff members started consulting him when they were feeling sick.

* [[Solve the Soup Cans]]: Both ''Under the Knife'' and ''Under the Knife 2'' feature simple puzzles that are supposedly related to complex biological science, given to Dr. Stiles to solve for whatever reason.

** ''Under The Knife/Second Opinion'' handwaves it by saying the scientist who gives Derek the puzzle isn't interested in the solution, just his problem-solving methods and everyone else at Caduceus did the same puzzles.

** To elaborate, the first Surgery mission is a direct follow up of the second Diagnostic mission. Keep this in mind. At the end of the first Surgery mission it branches out to the third Orthopedics mission which then leads to the third Diagnostic mission. However, by the time you choose that last one, you'll notice that the intro of that mission literally states that the first Surgery mission didn't take place yet. So, in the end, it's most likely that the writers of the game accidentally put the writing tense in the wrong order in the third Diagnostic mission.

* [[Thanking the Viewer]]: Done quite well in Trauma Team, when post-credit {{spoiler|Gabe speaks directly to the player, after which you are treated to a message from all doctors thanking you.}}

** ''Under the Knife 2'' introduces the Neo-GUILT, named for four Greek-derived concepts from Gnosticism: Nous (Intellect), Bythos (Depth), Sige (Silence) and Aletheia (Truth).

** ''New Blood'' used more Greek, this time from different parts of the body.

** And then there are patients whose names are a mix and match of the characters and actors of ''[[House (TV)|House]]'', ''[[Scrubs (TV)|Scrubs]]'' and ''[[ER (TV)|ER]]''.

* [[Timed Mission]]: ''Every'' mission, as it were. That is, until ''Trauma Team'', which drops the timer for the vast majority of the missions.

* [[Time Stands Still]]: {{spoiler|At the end of ''Under the Knife'', you automatically use your [[Bullet Time]] healing touch. If you use it again, time freezes. Completely.}}

** It's not said very clearly, but GUILT is a toxin which causes part of the victim's tissue to mutate into a parasite that starts tearing the rest apart. Also, {{spoiler|Deftera}} looked more like a tumor in Under The Knife than it did in the remake.

* [[Voice Grunting]]: The first game features a few voice clips from the characters who assist you in operations. The remake ''Second Opinion'' also adds some for the playable characters. ''Under the Knife 2'' goes all out with over one hundred short voice clips from the whole cast, including such gems as ''I DISAGREE'' and everyone saying Dr. Stiles's name in various ways. ''New Blood'' and ''Trauma Team'' just use full voice acting.

* [[You All Look Familiar]]: Averted for the most part, but played to absurd lengths with the Delphi members in ''Under the Knife 2''.

* [[You ALL Share My Story]]: The stories in ''Trauma Team'' are all connected, and late in the game, {{spoiler|all six doctors come together to fight the epidemic CR-S01 allegedly released before he lost his memories}}.