Does Trauma Team Make the Cut?! We'll Find Out! HOHOHOHOHO!!

Trauma Team is the latest entry in Atlus' Trauma Center series. Though this time, the focus is a bit different. Instead of simply doing surgery with the few odd puzzle missions thrown in, in Trauma Team you can play as a wide variety of medical professionals.  Such as:

Surgery: CR-S01, a doctor with no memories who is implicated in a bioterrorism attack
Diagnostician: Gabriel Cunningham. He's kinda like house with bigger hair.
First Response: Maria Torres. Remember Liz from IGPX? Kinda like her, but with an ambulance.
Endoscopy: Tomoe Tachibana. She's a ninja too.
Orthopedics: Hank Freebird. He's also Kamen Rider.
Forensics: Naomi Kimishima. One of the only three returning characters from the previous Trauma Center games (And one of them is just a cameo).

Forensics and and Diagnostician play a bit like a point-and-click adventure game. They're the most different as far as gameplay is concerned. Surgery is pretty much the same as always. First response is also very similar to surgery, just with multiple patients at the same time and less tools. Endoscopy is a neat idea, but I think it handles a bit weird. Orthopedics is usually easy, but it can take a while to do one operation.

My main complaint with this game is a lack of difficulty. I mean, some of Naomi's stages are pretty difficult, but I want some difficult SURGERIES. The other games made me scream in frustration at times, whereas this one (Even on the hardest mode) haven't really presented much of a challenge. In large part, that's due to a lack of "alien parasites" like GUILT, Neo-GUILT or STIGMA.

I sincerely hope this game gets a sequel though. The story was excellent. There were a few unexplained things and dropped plotlines, but I can only hope that's because Atlus is gonna give us a Trauma Team 2.

I'm giving this game an eight. The only thing stopping me from giving it a ten and yelling GO BUY IT NOW, is a serious lack of difficulty.

Oh, and Atlus should really consider making a BlackJack game. Playing as my favorite fictional surgeon and doing insane surgeries (Like removing a woman's entire reproductive system) would be the best possible surgery game.

An Overdue Overestimation

Good God, it’s been far too long since my last blog post, and I now feel both ashamed and a little bit slothful. I suppose my actions were in… BAD TASTE?!?!?!?!?!



Yes, here we have the as-of-2004 definitive Xabungle Chronicle, Bad Taste (I don’t get it either. Does Tomino hate Xabungle now?) in all its’ eight colour-page glory, most of which are spent on an interview with Tomino.




I won’t go through all the pages, and I really don’t want to break the back and scan it (sorry, guys), but it’s pretty standard stuff. Character designs, episode guides, some nice mechanical sketches:



Again, nothing special, and sadly mostly in black and white. I do dig the Xabungle designs, though, so it’s pretty cool. There are a couple of odd/interesting things, including full firearm designs throughout the show (I though they mostly just made ‘em up as they went along):



And there’s also a guide to their travels across Zola, with each point also referring to the episodes it featured in. Fun stuff if you can read moonrunes:



If you have any requests, I’ll see if I can get them from the book, if you don’t mind these kinds of Dutch angles. All in all, an okay buy for someone who can’t read a word in here, but it’s the price that made this brilliant for me:



Less than a quid for this? How could I even think of passing this up? And, in case you do want to search one of these out for yourself, take note that it is Xabungle and Galliar approved.



Funnily enough, these Soul of Chogokin figures came out after the book, so no mention of them. Other things Xabungle likes?

Noriko.



But what he learnt too late was that you can look…



But you can’t touch.



SASURAIGER
SASURAIGER YEAH
SASURAIGER
GOOD LUCK





Next Time (whenever the hell that is) on Ranking Panzer:

ANATA WA GANDAMU