Story - A Series of Terrific Shorts
You can play these doctors in whatever order you like, either playing one character’s entire story arc or switching from one to the other as you see fit. All the doctors are in the same timeline, meaning in some cases a patient you diagnose as Gabriel will later be treated by Tomoe or CR-SO1.
Stories are told through a series of comic-book style pictures that could easily be done on something as simple as the Nintendo DS. While I prefer cinematic cut scenes, I have to admit that I was still completely caught up in the doctor’s stories, which are by turns funny and touching. Terminally ill Naomi softens towards a little girl who insists on befriending her in spite of resistance. Maria yells and blusters but discovers, as in an old afterschool special, that it’s okay to ask for help. Hank’s eternal optimism and positivity slowly chips away at the moroseness of a suicidal girl.
After playing each doctor’s story arc, the player graduates into a final sequence in which you follow the outbreak and treatment of a terrible plague through the missions of the various doctors. I was looking forward to seeing the doctors work together on this final case, but while the story was fairly interesting, it did not offer the same emotional resonance that distinguished each doctor’s individual story.
Verdict: Often - But Not Always - Great
Some of these final missions are ridiculously annoying. Perhaps the game makers understand that. When Maria says “all this running around is going to kill me” as she treats a half dozen patients at once, or an orthopedic assistant says “this is interminable” in a section that involves repeating the same procedures over and over, I felt they were reading my mind.
Overall, Trauma Team is a mixed bag, but in spite of some tedious missions, the variety of the gameplay and the sharpness of the writing make the overall experience tremendously enjoyable. Ultimately, the game simply has a lot of heart, as well as blood, bones, ghosts, helicopters, military conspiracies, butterflies, ninjas, kittens and almost everything else in the world.
