History VideoGame / TraumaCenterAtlus

* OffModel: Derek's arm from ''Under the Knife'' in the pose where he extends it is ''far'' too long. Thankfully, this doesn't show up in any of the other games.

A series of five [[SimulationGame simulation games]] (2005-2010) by Creator/{{Atlus}} for the UsefulNotes/NintendoDS and Nintendo UsefulNotes/{{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.

** In ''Trauma Team'', [[spoiler:there is no mastermind behind the Rosalia virus outbreak. The epidemic arose from the actions of an unwitting instigator of doom, who was studying the virus and trying to benefit mankind.]]

** GUILT and Stigma do some very nasty things to their victims' bodies. In Trauma Team, [[spoiler:Naomi contracts the Rosalia Virus which then absorbs the genetic disease in her DNA, ie. GUILT, and "evolves". The result, Twisted Rosalia, looks like a black caterpillar curled up ''within her heart''.]]

* ''Trauma Center: New Blood'' - The third game in the series and the second one on the Wii, released in 2008. The game takes place in the year 2028, ten years after ''Under the Knife''. It focused on Valerie Baylock and Markus Vaughn, two Alaskan doctors who also have the Healing Touch trying to control the outbreak of the Stigma virus. Unlike the previous game, the game was now fully voice cast. While the story is a departure from the previous setting, it does feature cameos of Derek and Angie.

* JustPlaneWrong: ''Under The Knife'' has an operation called "Miracle at 9,800 ft." ("Miracle at 3000 m" in the Japanese version, thus ruling out localization-related UnitConfusion[[note]]9,800 meters is about 32,000 feet[[/note]]), referring to the operation taking place aboard a passenger jet. However, 9,800 feet is far too low of a cruising altitude for such aircraft; they usually cruise at 30,000-40,000 feet. The only possible justifications for flying that low would be if the plane was ascending after takeoff, descending to prepare for approach, or had to hold that altitude for some urgent reason, none of which are stated. This error is averted in ''Second Opinion'' as the equivalent level is just named "Caduceus on a Plane" instead.

* JustPlaneWrong: ''Under The Knife'' has an operation called "Miracle at 9,800 ft." ("Miracle at 3000 m" in the Japanese version), referring to the operation taking place aboard a passenger jet. However, 9,800 feet is far too low of a cruising altitude for such aircraft; they usually cruise at 30,000-40,000 feet. The only possible justifications for flying that low would be if the plane was ascending after takeoff, descending to prepare for approach, or had to hold that altitude for some urgent reason, none of which are stated. This error is averted in ''Second Opinion'' as the equivalent level is just named "Caduceus on a Plane" instead.

* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: In [[{{Speedrun}} speedruns]] of the First Response segments in ''Trauma Team'', it's fairly common to purposefully cause some patients' deaths to make the levels end sooner, as a Game Over only occurs if the number of lost patients exceeds a certain limit.

%%* BigBad:
%%** [[spoiler:Adam]] in ''Under the Knife'' and ''Second Opinion''
%%** [[spoiler:Master Vakhushti]] in ''New Blood''.
%%** In ''Under the Knife 2'', [[spoiler:Heinrich acts as the DiscOneFinalBoss, but is replaced by the BigBadEnsemble of Reina Mayuzumi and Patrick Mercer during the endgame.]].

%%* FissionMailed: Episodes 4-1 and 4-2 in ''Under the Knife 2'', to drive home Derek's HeroicBSOD. Context?

* RushBoss: Onyx of ''New Blood'' has an incredibly deadly attack that can end the patient if it is allowed to execute it a few times. However, if the player can find the real copy quickly enough each time, they can complete the level without seeing Onyx attack at all.

* TookALevelInBadass: The classic GUILT strains that return in ''Under the Knife 2'' learned some new tricks:
** The queen Kyriaki can now lay eggs to [[EnemySummoner generate more Kyriaki]].
** Tetarti now has 2 new colors.
** Pempti now has [[DualBoss 2 cores]], and when one dies, the other [[TurnsRed goes berserk]].

* ''Trauma Center: Second Opinion'' - An UpdatedRerelease of the original game, released on the Wii in 2006. ''Second Opinion'' retells the original story and expands on it by introducing Nozomi Weaver, a surgeon who has a different version of the Healing Touch.

* ''Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2'' - A direct sequel to ''Under the Knife'', taking place three years after Derek and Angie eradicated GUILT from the previous game. Released on the Nintendo DS in 2008.

* ''Trauma Team'' (released in Japan as ''Hospital: 6 Doctors'')- The third Wii game, released in 2010. In a radical shift in gameplay, ''Trauma Team'' spans 5 other professions. Alongside the standard surgery gameplay, other professions include Orthopedics (fixing bone tumors and bone-related issues), Endoscopy (using a godly brilliant medical device that acts as a probe to send inside a victim's body), First Response (which was essentially a scaled-down version of Surgery that had you hassling many patients at once), Diagnostics (using a variety of methods to determine what is wrong with a patient), and [[ForensicDrama Forensics]], where you are collecting evidence to solve crimes (although the usual cop drama fares of investigating leads and pursuing evidence is left absent, as your job is simply a forensic analysis). The latter two professions have a notable GenreShift in that they both play like a text-based adventure.

* ''Trauma Team'' - The third Wii game, released in 2010. In a radical shift in gameplay, ''Trauma Team'' spans 5 other professions. Alongside the standard surgery gameplay, other professions include Orthopedics (fixing bone tumors and bone-related issues), Endoscopy (using a godly brilliant medical device that acts as a probe to send inside a victim's body), First Response (which was essentially a scaled-down version of Surgery that had you hassling many patients at once), Diagnostics (using a variety of methods to determine what is wrong with a patient), and [[ForensicDrama Forensics]], where you are collecting evidence to solve crimes (although the usual cop drama fares of investigating leads and pursuing evidence is left absent, as your job is simply a forensic analysis). The latter two professions have a notable GenreShift in that they both play like a text-based adventure.

* FissionMailed:
** Episodes 4-1 and 4-2 in ''Under the Knife 2'', to drive home Derek's HeroicBSOD.
** Somewhat averted in ''Trauma Team'', where you'll have operations that are actually going to end in failure, but the game will still treat it as a successful operation.

** {{Averted}} in ''Trauma Team''. When the power goes out during an operation, the level ends as your patient goes into cardiac arrest and you require an AED. You resume working on the patient in the next level after the power comes back in a cutscene starting with said AED.

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

* MagicVersusScience:
** A major focus of the franchise, given the conflict between the Healing Touch, which is associated to the Greek God of medicine, and the GUILT, which are genetically engineered diseases.
** However, it's averted in ''Trauma Team'', where science and the supernatural are inherent to the protagonists' abilities, and the Rosalia virus is implied to be partially supernatural.

* NonLethalKO:
** If the player fails an operation, another doctor will take over before any more damage can be done and the main character will be shown having quit their job in shame. Of course, once the plots introduce GUILT and Stigma and each game's main characters are considered the only ones capable of dealing with it, it can be assumed that failure would doom the patient. The only real aversion is the bomb, which is implied to explode if you run out of time/make a mistake. No dialog, no cutscene, just an explosion and a [[NonStandardGameOver fade to white]]...
** 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."]]
** Also averted for Mission 6-4 of ''Second Opinion'' [[spoiler:where failing will imply that Derek dies. Angie will hystarically call out his name, and Dr. Kasal will have to make the unfortunate call to Caducius USA.]]
** 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.)

* SerialKiller: Most cases in Forensics in ''Trauma Team'' avert this, with [[spoiler:Sandra Lieberman]] being the sole exception.

* WorstAid: Averted in the story (to the point where it doesn't make any of the common mistakes), but potentially played completely straight in gameplay. In fact, it's actively ''encouraged'' to do this for an S/XS rank! Well, aside from in ''Trauma Team''.
* YouALLLookFamiliar: Averted for the most part, but played to absurd lengths with the Delphi members in ''Under the Knife 2''. Namely, they're ''all the same sprite'' with different expressions.

* BigBad: [[spoiler:Adam]] in ''Under the Knife'' and ''Second Opinion'' and [[spoiler:Master Vakhushti]] in ''New Blood''. In ''Under the Knife 2'', [[spoiler:Heinrich acts as the DiscOneFinalBoss, but is replaced by the BigBadEnsemble of Reina Mayuzumi and Patrick Mercer during the endgame.]]. ''Trauma Team'' [[spoiler:averts this trope altogether, as there is NoAntagonist, with the sole cause of every single conflict in the game being the non-sentient Rosalia Virus.]]

* FamilyUnfriendlyDeath: ''Trauma Team'' has a Forensics mode, so naturally you'll be examining a few victims of its major disease. They died ''horribly.'' Averted in the rest of the series (it's your job to save these people, and the one or two plot deaths aren't particularly grisly).

* CentralTheme: Trauma Team deals heavily with how one determines their life and the way they live and all six doctors confronts this theme in one way or another:
** CR-S01: With his life basically stripped away from him, he finds meaning as a doctor who wants to save lives.

* DarkerAndEdgier: While ''Under the Knife'' and ''Second Opinion'' are medical dramas at its core, the medical terroism aspect prevents it from becoming too dark as it mostly becomes about Derek and the Caduceus staff trying to contain and defeat GUILT and take down Delphi. ''New Blood'' however deals heavily in more realistic circumstances. Mainly it sees the main trio dealing with individuals out for their research, having them kidnapped and attempting to murder them, and sees them in the crossfire in several military operations, one of which includes an armed rebellion. As such, ''Under the Knife 2'' replicates aspects of ''New Blood's'' darker tones.

* DiscOneFinalBoss: In the first game, an operation with Savato is set up as seemingly the FinalBoss, due to the dramatic choir music, the GUILT assaulting the victim's heart, and the raised time limit. In ''Under the Knife'', this is followed up by a raid on a Delphi ship to cure a series of "incubator" patients, and in ''Second Opinion'', this makes way for an exclusive arc featuring both Derek and Naomi. (The final operation of both plots still end up with a Savato operation, albeit with a tougher version of said GUILT.)

* FinalExamBoss: The last strain of Neo-GUILT in ''Under the Knife 2'', which draws on the six types of GUILT you've already faced in the game (thankfully, four of the original strains didn't make it in - more than a few people would annihilate their cart if they had to face Triti or Savato again). To be even able to damage the boss, you need to take each type out with the strategies you used in previous battles with the strains.

--> '''[[spoiler:Dr. Hoffman]]''': [[spoiler:[[WhamLine How can I help]]?]]

--> '''[[spoiler: Derek]]''': [[spoiler: Derek Stiles.. Didn't you pursue this career to give people hope?! I'm not a doctor if I give up hope before my patients!]]

* ImDyingPleaseTakeMyMacguffin: [[spoiler: Anderson to Hoffman is a case of "I'm Dying Thanks to Pempti, Please Take Caduceus".]]

** Briefing music for particularly serious procedures in ''New Blood'' and ''Trauma Team'' becomes a variation on ''Under the Knife'''s briefing theme.

** And then, there are the X missions in ''Under the Knife''.

* ObligatorySwearing: ''Trauma Team'' ups the saltiness quite a bit from the previous games. Most of it is thanks to Maria Torres' HairTriggerTemper.

* PsychoSerum: Neo-GUILT serve as performance-enhancing substances. Bythos enhances bodily functions and motor skills (it was basically used as a steroid); Sige sharpens the user's thought processes[[spoiler:, which is what enabled the artificial Healing Touch]]; Aletheia halts the user's aging; and while Nous isn't explicitly shown to have such an effect, the meaning of its name and the fact that its original host went brain-dead imply that it was some sort of learning agent. But since they are derived from GUILT, {{side effects include}} agonizing death once the parasite inevitably awakens. Sige in particular [[spoiler:drove Adel [[AxCrazy totally nuts]]]]. Previously in ''Second Opinion'', Caduceus Europe tried to use [[spoiler: samples from Adam's body]] to create a super-healing agent called Z-Cells. [[GoneHorriblyWrong It didn't go any better]], [[spoiler: and the guy who came up with the idea was revealed to be a Delphi [[TheMole mole.]]]]

* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: The first strain of Stigma, Cheir, is ''very'' similar to Kyriaki.

** The missions ''Under the Knife'' and ''Second Opinion''.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

** {{Averted}} in ''Trauma Team''. When the power goes out during an operation, the level ends. You resume working on the patient in the next level after the power comes back in a cutscene.

* SequelDifficultySpike: Inverted and ZigZagged across the course of the series. ''Second Opinion'' relieved a lot of sources of frustration from ''Under the Knife'' by adding adjustable difficulty levels and pretty much setting the standard for the next two games. ''New Blood'' and ''Under the Knife 2'' then take this standard and add their own flavours of difficulty. ''Trauma Team'' makes its levels much easier than its predecessors, but then snaps back into very strict territory the moment a player tries to excel on its Specialist difficulty.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Trauma Center 2 begins with Derek and Angie being sent to Costigar to investigate a mysterious plague that has been ravaging the country. This plot point is completely forgotten after the first chapter concludes, save for a single episode much later when Adel suddenly falls ill due to it... which only raises the question of whether the disease is now free to spread through Japan.
* WhatTheHellHero: Angie scolds Derek for proper bedside manner. Cut forward a few episodes later, and she tells a suicidal patient to go die.

* ExcusePlot: ''New Blood'' did away with dialogue-only chapters, so every chapter involves an operation. This leads to a lot of operations and characters that are only vaguely related to the plot, and ''many'' "sudden emergencies" that require surgical intervention. This is done for the sake of keeping the gameplay varied, since one of the biggest complaints about ''Second Opinion'' was the stagnant gameplay.

** At the end of Chapter 2 of ''Under the Knife 2'', a new pathogen is discovered in Emilio's liver transplant and is promptly treated. Its identity and source remain a mystery until the final chapter, [[spoiler:where Blackwell and Victor trace it to the Hands of Ascelpius and their Neo-GUILT research.]]

** In ''Under the Knife 2'', it's a mechanical door lock instead - this has the advantage that locks won't kill you, but the ''alarm goes off'' if you mess up at all. Though it's implied by the Game Over screen, that if you fail that one you're as good as dead.

** Naomi's [[AbsoluteCleavage necklines plunge like the stock market]], and Hank's isn't much better.

* BrutalBonusLevel: Completing the main storyline in all games except ''Trauma Team'' unlock the X missions, which take the super-pathogens encountered across the storyline and crank the difficulty UpToEleven. ''Team'' unlocks a difficulty that lets you play ''every level as if it were an X opersation.''

* HarderThanHard: The "Extreme" difficulty for ''Second Opinion'', ''New Blood'', and ''Under The Knife 2'', which only applied to the [[BrutalBonusLevel X Missions]]. According to the developers, ''Trauma Team'''s "Specialist" difficulty takes this UpToEleven by elevating ''all operations'' to X Mission difficulty.

** And then, there are [[UpToEleven the X missions]] in ''Under the Knife''.