Trauma Team – WII – Preview

Atlus is taking the Trauma Center
franchise into a bold new territory with the upcoming Trauma Team. Trauma Team
features six different play styles and should offer a wealth of diversity to
keep players interested for the long run.

Through a web demonstration, Atlus
was able to provide a close look at Trauma Team’s forensics. Under the role of
Naomi Kimishima, a returning character from Trauma Center: Second Opinion,
players must investigate a series of deaths to discover the matter of the dead’s
ultimate demise. Was it murder? Was it a suicide? It’s up to the players to find
out the facts and with the tools provided, they should have an entertaining time
uncovering the truth.


Hello, do my muscles distract you?

Throughout the demonstration, we
were investigating the death of a 30-year-old male who had died with a knife in
his hands and cuts on his wrists.  Along the way, we discovered that this
unlucky soul had a broken finger, hemorrhaging in the eyes, kept drugs on the
top of the room’s fan blades, and was depressed before his death, which was
around 3 p.m. in the afternoon.

To discover these clues, we had help
from an assistant named “Little Guy,” which uses a picture of the player’s Mii.
As a point-and-click adventure – similar to Phoenix Wright – Trauma Team asks
players to max out all stars in the case to fully solve it. Mistakes are
allowed, but only so many are allotted before players fail the mission. For
thorough investigations, players will have to dedicate up to an hour for each
forensic investigation to close the case. For the forensic investigations, there
are five to six missions with one of them being a two-parter.


You can’t be serious!?

The forensics isn’t the only
attributing gameplay of Trauma Team as there are different gameplay types
including: a general surgeon, diagnostician, emergency medical technician /
first response, orthopedic surgeon, medical examiner, and endoscopy technician.
Each gameplay type is supposed to be drastically different, so the sky should be
the limit for the replay value of Trauma Team.

The navigation of the forensics for
Trauma Team leaned towards simplicity over complexity. Using the nunchuk to
rotate the dead body in full 3D animation, players are able to take a closer
look and examine the cuts, bruises and bumps on the body to further their
investigations. If something looks unnatural, then by all means, players can
have at it with putting it under a finer microscope to learn the truth. In
addition, the title makes use of the Wii Remote Speakers and will play the voice
of the recently deceased through means of a supernatural power of sorts. Yes,
the hokeyness of the Trauma Center series is still alive and well in Trauma
Team.

In the end, Trauma Team is staying
true to the storybook style of Trauma Center with a certain degree of anime
style and dynamic art all in tone with what fans have come to expect. From an
annoying 70-year-old woman playing the role of the nosey neighbor to the
cocaine-like substance that was found around the fireplace, Trauma Team is set
to deliver the goods on April 20 in the US.