1150: Further Enthusing Regarding Trauma Team

It’s not an exaggeration to say that I have been eagerly anticipating the ability to play Trauma Team ever since it was first announced, and I have been inordinately frustrated until recently at Atlus’ complete lack of a regular European distributor meaning that it never got an official release on this side of the pond. Now that I am happily playing my North American copy on my hacked Wii, you’ll hopefully forgive me if I perhaps dedicate a few posts to the awesome things about this game I’ve been waiting to play for a very long time — because judging by the bit I played tonight (I know I said I wouldn’t, but I am weak) there are going to be a lot of them.

I specifically wanted to talk about the Forensics missions today, because they’re one of the reasons I was so interested to play this game. A friend of mine described the presence of these missions as “you got Ace Attorney in my Trauma Center” — and if you know me well, you’ll know that that sounds like a match made in heaven for me. I’m pleased to note that these missions very much lived up to their promise.

In a Forensics mission, you take on the role of Dr Naomi Kimishima, a character who occasionally showed up in Trauma Center: Second Opinion. Naomi is a forensics specialist with a curious (and secret) talent — when she enters a crime scene, she can hear the victim’s dying words on her phone. Exactly why this is the case hasn’t been explained yet, but given that we’re dealing with a game in which an orthopaedic surgeon is also a superhero and the hospital’s resident endoscopy specialist comes from a long line of ninjas, I’m not entirely surprised by this turn of events.

Anyway. Gameplay in a Forensics mission involves nipping back and forth between Naomi’s office, the evidence room that houses the corpse and their personal effects, and the crime scene itself. By examining various items and pointing out abnormalities, Naomi collects “cards” that represent items of evidence or thoughts about the situation. By combining these cards together or sending them off for analysis to her FBI partner “Little Guy” (rather charmingly represented as a Mii avatar on her computer — this is a Wii game after all) she can inch them closer to being “solid evidence”. When all the cards she has in her possession are “solid evidence,” the case is solved, and you have to point out the relevant cards as she does her police procedural-style “wrap up” of the end of the case.

It’s not quite that simple, though. You effectively have to “show your working” as you deduce various things about the situation by answering multiple-choice questions. These generally ask what you, the player, have deduced from the items of evidence you’ve observed or combined. Most of the time, thinking logically through them will get you through, but there have already been a few headscratchers and pieces of misdirection along the way — plus you have to make sure you remember plenty of details about the case as you go along. You can’t just try every answer until you get it right, either — make too many mistakes and you’ll fail the mission.

The whole thing was brilliantly presented with some atmospheric music, excellent visuals and decent voice acting, and it’s exactly the sort of thing I’d like to see more of in the console space. Essentially, it was nothing more than a kind of point and click adventure, but it was hugely fun and massively engaging. I’m looking forward to seeing more of Naomi — and of seeing how her story ties in with that of the other doctors, as so far she’s been largely separate from the rest of them. Trauma Team has a very interesting narrative structure, but that’s something I’ll save talking about until a later time when I’m a bit further on.

This sort of experience is exactly why I love Atlus, and why I love the Trauma Center series in particular. I’m doing things in this game that I have never done in any other game before — not just in Naomi’s forensics section, but also in the diagnostic and surgery components, too. The game is also a fantastic use of the Wii’s distinctive control scheme, making brilliant use of all the Wii Remote and Nunchuk’s features, ranging from their accelerometers to the pointer function and even the speaker in the handset. It’s a game that really couldn’t be done in the same way on any other platform — perhaps PlayStation Move, though making a Move-exclusive title is pretty much commercial suicide — and a fantastic experience that I would very much like to jam in the face of anyone who complains that the Wii doesn’t have any good games.