One of the most stressful times I've had with a game in a while, and also maybe the most I've had to persevere through a playthrough in order to make it through some of the harder surgeries you have to do in this game. It is pretty fucking hard for a game without any difficulty settings (or, well, ANY settings, to be fair). To its credit, it does a good job, in that sense, simulating the life of a surgeon; getting you in a pressuring environment and in a stressed mindsight. Then, to its detriment, it does a really poor job in almost every other aspect.
The game takes a lot of liberties in simulating medical practice, both to simplify gameplay, I imagine, but also to simplify writing. Having this take place in a not-so-distant future (2018, lol) where nearly all diseases are cured just takes away a lot of grounding I think this game may have needed. In some chapters, it attempts to humanize patients you'll only know for about 20 minutes of gameplay, each, if that, but the writing is just not doing the work in order to make these virtual bodies that you're cutting up feel anymore than just that.
Then, once the plot about fighting off a terrorist-developed parasite named G.U.I.L.T. (exactly what I'd expect from an Atlus medical drama), the less and less important your patients' humanity becomes. So, it's not well-written enough to be an interesting medical drama that uses this exceptional medium of touch controls in order to experiment with dramatized surgeon simulation. But, also, it's a little too finicky to be a fun game. Each level's difficulty ranges wildly, in my experience. I would also struggle through all five minutes of a surgery only to try it again and finish pretty quickly, which, while I can't exactly say how, makes me think the level design is just a little off. There were just many times where I couldn't quite figure out how "correctly" I was doing something.
A lot of this game just feels off, in that way. While I do think it was an interesting and fun playthrough, as the levels that were well designed did feel so satisfying and accomplishing to finish, this is definitely a rough cut. I am very interested in what some of the newer installments of this series do, if anything, to smooth things out. Also, this was hard with touch controls, what the hell does a Wii version of this game feel like?
Also, what kind of surgeon is Derek Stiles? Ignore the fact that he is somehow 26-years-old and has finished residency in what is obviously a fictional version of Los Angeles, California, USA. This young man performs, just out of residency, general surgery, pediatric surgery, cardiac surgery, and trauma surgery. All four of which require four separate board certifications for, and, thus, require around 3-5 years of training each. Just thought that was a funny hint as to how intensive the scenario writers bothered to understand the medical field, lol.
The game takes a lot of liberties in simulating medical practice, both to simplify gameplay, I imagine, but also to simplify writing. Having this take place in a not-so-distant future (2018, lol) where nearly all diseases are cured just takes away a lot of grounding I think this game may have needed. In some chapters, it attempts to humanize patients you'll only know for about 20 minutes of gameplay, each, if that, but the writing is just not doing the work in order to make these virtual bodies that you're cutting up feel anymore than just that.
Then, once the plot about fighting off a terrorist-developed parasite named G.U.I.L.T. (exactly what I'd expect from an Atlus medical drama), the less and less important your patients' humanity becomes. So, it's not well-written enough to be an interesting medical drama that uses this exceptional medium of touch controls in order to experiment with dramatized surgeon simulation. But, also, it's a little too finicky to be a fun game. Each level's difficulty ranges wildly, in my experience. I would also struggle through all five minutes of a surgery only to try it again and finish pretty quickly, which, while I can't exactly say how, makes me think the level design is just a little off. There were just many times where I couldn't quite figure out how "correctly" I was doing something.
A lot of this game just feels off, in that way. While I do think it was an interesting and fun playthrough, as the levels that were well designed did feel so satisfying and accomplishing to finish, this is definitely a rough cut. I am very interested in what some of the newer installments of this series do, if anything, to smooth things out. Also, this was hard with touch controls, what the hell does a Wii version of this game feel like?
Also, what kind of surgeon is Derek Stiles? Ignore the fact that he is somehow 26-years-old and has finished residency in what is obviously a fictional version of Los Angeles, California, USA. This young man performs, just out of residency, general surgery, pediatric surgery, cardiac surgery, and trauma surgery. All four of which require four separate board certifications for, and, thus, require around 3-5 years of training each. Just thought that was a funny hint as to how intensive the scenario writers bothered to understand the medical field, lol.