#i' might remake this once i know enough about her to add fun text or something idk

[invinciblerodent]

i spent longer on this than i care to admit

(th. there's a brand of coffee. called Bellarom. they sell it at Lidl. you get it.)

[mariolucario493]

STUFF I WANT IN A BANJO-KAZOOIE REMAKE (IF THERE IS ONE)

So as you are probably aware, Banjo and Kazooie have finally made it into Super Smash Bros. This is a huge accomplishment, as they have been absent from Nintendo for years. But this begs the question - will we be getting a proper new Banjo title in the near future? I certainly hope so, but before that, it would be nice to see the original games re-released on current consoles.

Now the question is how they would do this. Would they just re-release the original games with slightly updated graphics like they did on XBLA? That seems like the safer option. But maybe they’ll go the interesting route and remake the whole games from scratch. Given that we live in a time where everyone seems to be capitalizing on 90′s nostalgia, the latter seems like a possibility. But I’m not here to complain about Disney’s live-action remakes. Besides, with video games, remakes seem to be quite faithful to the originals. We’ve gotten DS/3DS remakes of Mario 64, Star Fox 64, Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, and maybe some others I can’t think of. Pokemon has remade generations before as well. And of course, the remake of Link’s Awakening looks promising. Even Rare has gotten in on it before - remember Conker: Live and Reloaded? True, a lot of the original developers left Rare to form Playtonic, but maybe the two companies could joint develop it - as long as Microsoft gives everyone complete creative control, of course.

So let’s say they do go this route and completely remake the original two games. It shouldn’t just be the same game but in HD. There are some things I’d like them to improve upon from the N64.

First of all, they definitely should keep the changes they did with XBLA - that is, making notes permanently collectible. No one wants to get PTSD from Rusty Bucket Bay. Admittedly, this might make finding the last few notes more difficult, but it’s probably still better than dying with 99 notes. Or what if the notes do not reset if you die, but they do reset if you leave the level? That way, if you’re having trouble finding the last note, you can just reset. Maybe there could also be a special reward for finding all 900. Yes, there is that last door that requires 882 notes and doubles your health, but maybe something else. There’s already a reward for getting all 100 Jiggies in Mumbo teaching you about some of the Stop n’ Swop items.

And speaking of Stop n’ Swop, let’s talk about that. The limited technology of the time meant they weren’t able to implement the idea of transferring items from one game to another during the N64 era. Now they did manage to do that for the XBLA re-releases, but there were still a few flaws that I saw. In the N64 version of Banjo-Tooie, you had to essentially find the Stop n’ Swop items again. In the XBLA version, if you got them in BK, you would have them in BT from the start of the game. But the problem is that the secret areas were still there, just empty. If you had no idea what was supposed to be there, you’d be confused as to why these secret caves exist. So I think they should combine the two ideas. By that I mean, have the secret areas in BT empty normally, but have the secret items show up there once you get them in BK. Maybe include a sign in the secret areas that gives a hint like “Return to the Sandcastle and enter the following code.” If both games were bundled together, it would make the transfer of data even easier. Though the issue there was that the N64 version of BT only had the Ice Key and three of the six eggs. The developers would have to come up with places to hide the last three eggs in BT. But I think they could do that.

It would also be cool if there was a multiplayer mode. Banjo-Tooie had multiplayer minigames, but maybe they could add some to Banjo-Kazooie as well. Specifically, I’d like to see a multiplayer version of Grunty’s Furnace Fun. It would either be a race to the end or just competing for points.

One thing Yooka-Laylee was missing was world maps. Pretty much every 3D game nowadays has a way to bring up an overhead map of the area. But a combination of no maps and everything looking the same made Yooka-Laylee’s worlds difficult to navigate. So yes, there needs to be a map of each world. And that map should highlight certain areas such as the start area, Mumbo’s hut, all the Bottles/Jamjars locations (once you find them, of course), warp pads, etc. And there could also be an option to place beacons. You know, where you put a dot on the map and a light appears in the sky to guide you there. Admittedly, this would be difficult to implement in more cavernous levels like Clanker’s Cavern or Glitter Gulch Mine, so the beacon idea might not be possible. Also, for some maze-like sub areas like Targitzan’s Temple, maybe the map should not be accessible until you complete everything in the area. That way, you can still feel like you’re exploring.

One thing Yooka-Laylee actually did right (once it was patched, of course) was fixing the auto-scrolling text. Pretty much every game has the text pause until you press a button to advance it, but not BK or BT for some reason. You could still hold down the button to make the text scroll faster, but tap it to advance to the next sentence.

And now let’s talk about the toughest thing that I’d like to see changed for this hypothetical remake - that being the comedy. As timeless as these games are, I will admit that there are a few moments that clearly stand out as being a product of the 90′s. Certain jokes might not be acceptable today. Now I love all the fourth wall jokes and subtle adult innuendos, and they should definitely keep those. What I am concerned about is a couple of the characters that are obvious stereotypes. Take for example, Rubee, the snake charmer in Gobi’s Valley. Despite only being part of one Jiggy mission, this character seems to suffer from the same Indian stereotypes that Apu from The Simpsons suffered from.  With his overly large turban and strange way of speaking, he seems like he could use an update. Now how would they do that? My idea? Make him an animal. Perhaps an elephant, like Taj from Diddy Kong Racing. This could also fit his role as a snake charmer, as he could play his trunk like a flute.

There’s also Jolly Roger and Merry Maggie, who seem to be cheap shot at gay stereotypes. Jolly speaks in a very camp voice and makes those hand gestures. Maggie is implied to be a transvestite; and if I remember correctly, Kazooie reacts with disgust when she sees her. Again, we might have to change them up a little. I’m not sure how we would do that, but definitely start by making them more than just one-dimensional stereotypes.

But perhaps the most awkwardly stereotypical character in the Banjo games is Humba Wumba. Native American stereotypes seem to be one of the most controversial out there. The problem with Humba is that she is a much more important character than Jolly or Rubee. She appears in every level of the second game, and her transformations are essential for getting many of the Jiggies. Mumbo also seems to be based on the stereotypical tribal African witch doctor, but again, he is at least non-human enough for that to be acceptable. Humba, on the other hand, is definitely human. And she wears that stereotypical buckskin outfit and feather headdress, and she speaks in broken English Tonto-style, and her theme music includes that war cry that isn’t even a real thing. Now I personally am as white as white can be (at least I think I am, but I’m not about to sent a DNA sample to one of those ancestry sites so they can sell it to the government), so I’m not exactly the best person to talk to about how to write a Native American character. On top of that, Humba seems to just be there for sex appeal. Yes, I’ll admit, I had a few fantasies about her giant polygonal tits growing up. She’s definitely at least more attractive then the fairies in Ocarina of Time. Now for all its faults, Nuts and Bolts did redesign Humba to be a little less of a stereotype. In that game, she wears a more contemporary outfit and has a more realistic figure. It’s not perfect, but it’s a good start. Theoretically, Humba could work if they were more tongue-in-cheek about how insensitive she is. Like have Kazooie make a snarky remark about how the 90′s were a simpler time. If there ever is a completely new Banjo game, they could cut her out altogether; but in the event of a re-release, she is an integral part of Banjo-Tooie.

It was also kind of surprising back in 1998-2000 to see an E-rated game this violent. And I’m not talking about the goofy slapstick either. Both Clanker in Clanker’s Cavern and Lord Woo Fak Fak in Jolly Roger’s Lagoon visibly bleed. How many times do you see blood in an E-rated game? Yeah, they might have to change that. For Clanker, since he’s mostly mechanical, you could replace the bloody parts of his body with rust. And as for Fak Fak, you could just change the color of the blood like you did with Ganondorf. Which would actually be realistic, since red light doesn’t travel that far in water, so red things such as blood often appear greenish-yellow when you’re hundreds of feet below the water’s surface. Of course, Kazooie should still stay red no matter what.

There’s a few other things that might be seen as insensitive, like the child abuse that Boggy’s kids face, or the lady with the watermelons at the end of BK. But as much as some of those jokes seem mean-spirited, I actually think it would be better to keep most of them. I don’t see a game as goofy as Banjo-Kazooie beginning with a serious disclaimer about stereotypes like they put at the start of all those Looney Tunes compilation DVD’s, but the developers should definitely tread lightly if they want to keep the spirit of the original games without offending anyone. We may end up with an E10 or even a T rating, but it would be worth it. But this is Tumblr, after all, and being offended is like a national pastime here.

Just a few months ago, a new Banjo game seemed like a pipe dream. But with what we saw at E3, we might just get it. Either way, the kids of today deserve a chance to experience what we grew up with. But what else would you like to see in a Banjo-Kazooie/Tooie remake or a new game altogether?

[dynamite-derek]

My top-10 games of 2018

It’s that time of the year where you are flooded with lists of the best stuff from 2018 and I’m no different. Originally I was going to just make a list of the top 10 games I played in 2018. I even had a giant list I was updating throughout the year. But one day my phone randomly reset and I lost that list. So, business as usual this year. Maybe next year. 

Before I start with the numbered list, I’d like to note a couple of games that won’t be appearing for various reasons.

Games I liked a lot but haven’t played enough of to place on a list like this: Into the Breach, Dead Cells

A critically acclaimed game I haven’t played: God of War

I don’t want remakes on my list, but these games were really good: Shadow of the Colossus, Yakuza Kiwami 2 and Spyro Reignited Trilogy

Ports aren’t eligible but I like these a lot too: Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, Shenmue 1&2, Hyrule Warriors and the PC port of one of the best games ever, Yakuza 0.

Okay, let’s get started.

10-) Red Dead Redemption 2: Actually had to debate between this and Pokemon: Let’s Go Pikachu for this spot. Ultimately I chose this game because the narrative is spectacular. Well that and the fact that Let’s Go is sort of a remake. This game absolutely nails atmospheric storytelling and creates one of the most interesting protagonists in AAA gaming. This game does a lot of things well, but the actual gameplay portion is...pretty mixed. I didn’t have fun with the open world at all and most missions involved long bouts of horseback riding with dialogue or ambient music. But RDR 2 does everything else so well. It also knows when to go all out. Every major mission in the game is memorable for one reason or another, especially with intelligent usage of music. It’s a game I will never play again, but despite some problems with the gameplay I can safely say that I enjoyed my time with it.

9-) Mario Tennis Aces: This game was a lot of fun. I wrote about it earlier in the year and my opinions on it are still the same.  Even though the gameplay is fairly simplistic, every match against another human felt unique and different. You have to learn the styles of your opposition and adapt. It’s like a fighting game! The online gameplay was also pretty solid. I felt pretty damn good whenever I would win a tournament. Really, Smash Bros. Ultimate would have done well to borrow this mechanic in some way. The only real problem with the game is that there is just a major lack of content. The heavily advertised story mode is barely worth playing and the cups, well, you might as well be playing against an unmanned player 2. I haven’t touched the game in a while, so this might have been fixed via update. As I said a few months ago, this game could have been a masterpiece with a bit of extra fine tuning.

8-) Dragon Ball Fighter Z: This game feels like it was made specifically for me. I have a lot of love for the Marvel vs. Capcom games and even more love for the Dragon Ball franchise. The game is easy to approach for newcomers to this type of game by keeping the inputs simple and having very easy to pull of auto-combos. You won’t do too well online if you stick to the auto combos, but it’s a good way to start and learn how to play. I think a lot of people could start with Fighter Z and transition into more complicated fighting games, which is exactly what you want with a game like this that will attract many people who might not otherwise play a traditional fighter. Oh, and sometimes it looks like you’re playing an episode of the anime which is insane. The story mode is pretty tedious at times, which is a let down, but Fighter Z is an absolute blast to play and is easily the best playing Dragon Ball game yet. Hopefully season 2 of the DLC goes less heavy on all the Gokus. 

7-) Mega Man 11: The blue bomber returns! It’s been a long wait, but after playing through both collections last year and then the X-collection earlier this year, I was ready for Mega Man to get back into the spotlight. It’s a little hard to get into at first because the level design seems pretty tied into the main new mechanic, the gear system. Basically the player can slow things down to a crawl or boost Mega Man’s power. If you just play this game like you would any other Mega Man game, you’re probably going to throw your console out the window during Tiki Man’s stage. Once you figure this out, the system adds a unique flavor to the Mega Man experience and feels like an actual new Mega Man. I love MM9 and 10, but those did not feel like new games. The only thing that I didn’t like about this game was the music. Which, uh, is weird for a Mega Man game. Here’s hoping they get it right in the inevitable Mega Man X9. 

6-) Marvel’s Spider-Man: I don’t particularly like super hero movies and I haven’t enjoyed a Spider-Man game thoroughly since the first PS1 Spider-Man, so you wouldn’t normally think this game would appeal to me. But it absolutely does. The gameplay is outstanding and combines an improved version of the swinging scene in Spider-Man 2 with a combat system that is fairly similar to the Batman Arkham games. I recommend playing the game on hard because, while it’s hard to get used to, it makes every encounter feel unique. You constantly have to adapt to what the enemy is doing. You can’t just mash on the attack button and then press the dodge button when the dodge prompt comes up. 

The story is also interesting throughout. It has my favorite interpretation of Peter Parker I’ve seen in a while and has a pretty enjoyable cast of characters. Really Mary Jane is the only character I didn’t like and even with her, there are moments that hit home - specifically the text exchanges between MJ and Peter. The game is littered with references to past Spidey adventures and just feels like a giant love letter to fans of the hero. Can’t recommend it enough.

5-) Celeste: I didn’t know what to expect with this game. Sometimes I feel very leery of when a bunch of people prop up an indy game too much. Gone Home a couple of years ago told a pretty mediocre story that was held up as some form of high art. Just didn’t get it. So I went into Celeste wanting to not like it and came out fairly surprised. The gameplay feels like a better version of Super Meat Boy and the narrative tells a pretty compelling tale about depression and how to come to terms with yourself. I even don’t mind the pixel art. I am getting sick of indy games going for the retro aesthetic, but when combined with the great soundtrack it’s hard not to love what it’s presenting. 

The game is simple enough to complete on its own. I would argue that anybody could do it as long as they keep at it. But for those platforming veterans, the game also offers a heavy challenge. The B-side and C-side levels will test your skills and remind you of some of the most challenging bits of hard platforming games like Super Meat Boy and I Wanna Be The Guy. Basically, come for the compelling narrative. Stay for the wickedly difficult and addicting gameplay.

4-) Yakuza 6: I believe I enjoyed this game far more than most folks. It told the end of Kazuma Kiryu’s story. It had some problems along the way but my god did I enjoy the ride. The cast of characters surrounding Kiryu in Hiroshima are all great and one of the main characters is Beat Takeshi. It also has a ton of things to do and see. I love the clan wars sidequest featuring New Japan wrestlers, I love the baseball manager quest, I LOVED becoming a regular at a bar and getting to know everyone in it like I was playing some sort of weird Cheers game, I even loved the adult cam chats that came with wacky dialogue. This game is full of charm.

I haven’t mentioned the gameplay yet you might have noticed. That’s because, well, it’s a new direction for the franchise. It focuses on allowing more people to fight Kiryu at once and as a result feels less refined than recent entries Yakuza 0 and Yakuza 5. I am excited to see where they take it in Yakuza 7, but I would be fibbing if I suggested that I felt 6 plays as well as previous entries. Still, the entire Yakuza package is compelling and I never felt like I was scrambling for things to do or see. I don’t 100% games out of obligation. I’m not one of those people that feels the need to 100% every game I play. I 100%ed Yakuza 6 though. And I loved every minute of it, combat and all.

3-) Valkyria Chronicles 4: As none of you might know, I used to review games for a website called 411mania. One of the games I reviewed for them was the original Valkyria Chronicles. Nobody else wanted to do it because it looked like a generic jRPG and I was really the only person on the site who liked jRPGs so the game fell to me. And I absolutely loved it. The story was captivating, the graphics were stylish and and the gameplay felt like a breath of fresh air. It was the combination of a tactical RPG and a (very, very simplified) shooter. To this day it remains one of my favorite games ever. Conversely, Valkyria Chronicles 2 on the PSP is one of my least favorite games ever and 3 never came to the states - though it does have a fan translation. The franchise has felt dead in the west for ages. The musou-like Azure Revolution sure as fuck didn’t get me going.

4 came out this year and it felt like I went back in time. Everything I loved about 1 was back. It’s even expanded upon. The grenadier is a great new troop that feels overpowered at first, but really forces the player to rethink how to approach certain situations. The story isn’t as good as the story in 1, but I found it simple and enjoyable. I genuinely liked the main cast and wanted to see them do well. That’s more than I can say for a lot of games. I know I mentioned earlier in my blurb about Mega Man that what I liked about it was that it actually felt like a new game. The difference here is that I have 10 other Mega Man games that play like Mega Man games. With this franchise, I have 1 (or maybe 2, I hate how maps work on the PSP but I have not played enough of 3 to judge). Sometimes a franchise revival needs to go “like the one you like but more” route. I loved this game and I hope as it gets cheaper more people try it. 

2-) Dragon Quest XI: Hey you might notice this about my gaming preferences, but I really enjoy Japanese RPGs! And this sure as hell was one of those! DQ XI felt like a game from another dimension in a lot of ways. It’s a traditional playing Japanese RPG with a big AAA budget. It looks breathtaking. Big budget JRPGs feel like something out of the PS2 era, which is great because I sure love PS2 era RPGs. It’s lengthy, it has a crazy amount of postgame content and has a lot of side stuff in case you get tired of fighting down the main path. It’s a great throwback. 

This game also has the most balanced party in recent RPG memory. Usually games like these have one or two party members that you just don’t enjoy. For instance, Final Fantasy X is one of my favorite games ever. But I just don’t like Kimahri. I don’t like using him and I don’t think his character is interesting. DQ XI has nobody like that. I found everybody likable. Sylvando and Jade in particular stand out and are among my favorite characters in gaming. Really, I enjoy everything about this game. Even the music! I know a lot of people complain about the simplified score in the western version, but I honestly found it to work out pretty well for the game. Obviously the Japanese version is superior, but I still enjoy it. If you’re a fan of RPGs and you haven’t played DQ XI, you’re missing out.

1-) Super Smash Brothers Ultimate: This was my most anticipated game of 2018 from the moment it was announced and the final product delivered everything that I had hoped it would. You have a large cast of characters, a crazy number of stages and a bunch of single player content to consume in between bouts of online or local multiplayer. The single player is what ranks this game so high for me. The classic mode - think arcade mode in standard fighters - is easily the best it has ever been. Each character has their own route with their own gimmick, which gives the player incentive to play each and every one. With a roster of over 70 fighters, that’s impressive. The adventure mode can start off slow, but once you get into the groove of it I really think it stands out as something special. It’s an expanded version of event battles from past games. You face off against a fighter (or fighters) embodying the personality of a character that isn’t in the game. They range from obscure stuff you haven’t heard of to a fight with Geno’s spirit that has you do battle with the cast of Super Mario RPG (with substitutes for Geno and Mallow). It feels very creative. It can be grindy for some, but I really enjoyed my time with it.

I think the online could be more fleshed out. I don’t experience as many laggy matches as most people, but even still the options online are fairly bare bones. You don’t even have leaderboards. I want to compare how good I am with how good my friends are! I think Nintendo plans to keep this game alive for the duration of the Switch’s lifespan, so I believe there will be plenty of time to get the online situation perfect. That doesn’t really excuse Nintendo from still not getting online even close to right in 2018, but I find Ultimate to be such a complete package that I can look past these shortcomings. Ultimately, it is my favorite entry in one of my favorite franchises. So it’s pretty easily my game of the year.

[gamearamamegathons]

Trauma Center: Second Opinion: Surgery-Induced Rage

[Content warning for surgery stuff, and also bugs/spiders]

Circe here! I've covered two chapters this time, so there's a lot to get into. Let's get right to it. The first part of chapter 5 is just about treating a huge outbreak of GUILT. This gives the game an excuse to re-use a lot of its previous surgeries, just more difficult. First off, we have to handle five Kyriaki cases in ten minutes. This is actually pretty tense, but I'm glad I didn't lose. There's only so much fun you can squeeze out of doing the same surgery five times in a row. After this, they make a big deal out of there being a new airborne strain of GUILT, but it's actually just triangles again. This time, if you let the mist leave the surgery area, the infection spreads and you lose. But there's no reason for there to ever be a risk of that happening, so that plays out exactly the same. This game actually seems to pull that trick a lot, making a big deal about mutations that change the gameplay in barely-noticeable ways. Case in point, we now have a Tetarti case that they say is stronger, but I actually didn't notice a difference. There's some plot stuff about politicians obstructing the distribution of our GUILT treatment drugs, but that gets handled so it's not really worth making much of a fuss over.

Things get a bit more interesting afterward, when Delphi operatives break into Caduceus. The doctors make the logical step and decide that they should catch the intruders. This is a big government operation, are there no guards or anything...? Well, Dr. Meyers confronts one of the infiltrators and gets a picture of him, but she's infected with a new GUILT in the process. Introducing Paraskevi, which is a bit of an interesting one, and kinda fun to deal with. It's a sort of segmented worm thing, and we have to stun it with the laser, and cut it in half with the scalpel. We have to keep doing this until it's small enough to remove, creating new pieces moving around in the process. It's also burrowing through her organs, and if it reaches her heart, it's instant game over. So we just gotta get them all before that. They say you should stop the Paraskevi before it burrows, but it doesn't seem to telegraph that before it does. I eventually figure this out later, but we'll get to that.

We find out that the infiltrator was actually Dr. Blackwell, who is Angie's father who left his family behind 13 years ago. It looks like it's time to go raid Dr. Blackwell's lab, so naturally Derek and Angie are going with. There's a huge exchange about whether Angie's emotions will get in the way, but Angie insists she wants to go. I could complain about this scene, but it's not worth the effort, so let's move on. When we reach the Delphi lab, it looks like Delphi's higher ups have evacuated and left their researchers to die. Which seems like a bad move, these aren't just generic replaceable flunkies, but whatever. Naturally, we won't allow even the bad guys to die of GUILT, so we start treating one of them. Inside his organs, we find...well, basically little bugs crawling out of him. Gross. This surgery isn't very complicated, you just laser them as they come. When a lot of them clump together, they can form a larger blue bug that does a lot of damage to the patient, but if you keep at it, you'll clear them out without too much trouble.

The big one is the next surgery. We find Dr. Blackwell himself, infected with his greatest creation, Savato. This is the strain we just dealt with, but this time there's a whole boss monster here. It's basically a spider creature that makes a web around the victim's heart to drain their energy and make it stop. We have to cut away the webbing, but it *melts scalpels* so we gotta just keep getting replacement scalpels every time we cut a strand of web. Naturally, it can create more of the little guys, but they're not too hard to clean up as you go. After this part, you have to laser off a protective layer on the Savato's body. Once this is burned off, you can cut it with the scalpel. We have to repeat this a few times, and then we get a serum which can kill it. Injecting the serum causes it to flip out and start making lacerations everywhere, so Derek automatically uses his dark magic. Even then, though, it's too fast to kill, so you have to figure out that you need *double* dark magic to stop time completely and kill Savato once and for all. Uh, hope you didn't use up your healing touch already, that would suck. To be honest, Savato isn't that hard and even a little bit boring, since you have to laser it a lot and there's not a lot of visual indication of how long you have to laser it to get rid of its protection completely. But I guess it's not a big deal.

After this, we get Dr. Weaver's final episode. We see her at the Delphi lab pre-raid, where she's treating a researcher infected with Kyriaki. While she's doing this, we also see the medium-sized blue Savato again. But she's told to keep them alive while she treats the Kyriaki, because they need to be extracted to use as samples. This is a bit annoying, but not too bad as long as you keep the patient's vitals up. After the Kyriaki are gone, you get a serum to stun the Savato and extract them. After this, Dr. Weaver is told to evacuate, and they let her go since Delphi doesn't need her anymore. However, she kept the Savato samples, rather than handing them over. Seems like kind of a massive oversight that they just forgot to ask for the samples, but oh well, I guess.

The next section is mainly text, which is weird. I think this may be the bridge between the original content and a new remake-exclusive chapter, which would explain it, I guess. It's pretty sloppy, though. Basically it says that Delphi were exposed, and Dr. Blackwell cooperated with the investigation, so Delphi were effectively wiped out. Their home base was a fortified ship, which housed their leader Adam, who's essentially just an emaciated GUILT host at this point, I guess. It's weird. After this, we flash forward a few months, after Caduceus has largely been successful in eliminating GUILT.

Derek and Angie travel to Caduceus's European branch to see some new research they're working on. It looks like they've created a treatment for regenerating cells, which sounds pretty neat. We also meet Dr. Weaver again, going by her real name, Dr. Kimishima. The characters explain that there are still cases of GUILT cropping up, and they suspect that Delphi splinter groups are to blame. We treat a Tetarti strain that actually *is* harder, because rather than seeing their colors, we have to go by the toxic mist they emit, which is correctly color-coded. It's a neat idea, and not too tough to handle. Tetarti treatments are pretty chill, no matter what gimmicks they add on. Unfortunately, Derek collapses after the surgery. It looks like he, too, has been infected, and Dr. Kimishima will have to treat him.

This surgery is kinda tough, because we have to deal with Kyriaki and Paraskevi at the same time. This is right near his heart, so we have to deal carefully with the Paraskevi. Luckily, they're smaller this time, but it's a bit hectic between the Paraskevi and a much more aggressive Kyriaki. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Dr. Kimishima also confesses her involvement with Delphi, and explains that she traded her services and the Savato samples to Caduceus Europe in exchange for immunity...so that's why she's here now. Good to know.

After this, we learn that the regenerative treatments are actually created from Adam's GUILT-infected cells. I don't see anything inherently bad about repurposing a disease for healing purposes -- that's the entire basis of vaccines, after all. But the other characters seem very unhappy about this development. After this is revealed, we move on to a conference where Caduceus Europe goes into greater detail on their research. There's a very strange exchange where they explain that the government wanted this research to heal soldiers, and Hoffman claims disapprovingly that this would 'remove the risk of sending men to war'. He seems to think this is bad, even though the soldiers wouldn't even be fit to fight after this treatment, they just...wouldn't...die. I don't know, I guess it's an anti-war message, after a fashion, but I can't really get behind the sentiment that soldiers should suffer more. It's not like governments care about what happens to them after they're no longer useful, so this whole angle seems...confused, and it's never brought up again.

Whatever, let's cut to the money shot everyone's waiting for. They bring out a patient who was treated with this stuff, but then something goes wrong and his...blood...explodes...it's not really clear. Point is, GUILT-infected blood just got over a room full of the best doctors in the world and that *seems bad*. Derek is immune because he was infected once before I guess, so he's gotta get to work. The first GUILT we gotta treat is Pempti, and again, they claim it's different somehow, but this one seems to play out...basically the same as before. Maybe it takes more hits? If you keep it under control, that really doesn't make much difference...so...eh.

It's the next surgery where things really get fun, and by 'fun' I mean welcome to hell. In this episode, we have to do four surgeries in a row, in ten minutes. But unlike the last one of these, they're all different, and they're mostly very difficult rather than pedestrian Kyriaki treatments. First up is triangles, and you might think this would be the worst one, but with some practice, I actually managed to do it without a lot of difficulty. After that is Kyriaki, and there's nothing to make it any more difficult than before, so this is the one easy one. Next up, though...the third one is Deftera. You might remember that Deftera is the one where you have red and blue moving tumors, and we want them to collide so we can suck their fluids out. This surgery has some issues. First, the patient is bleeding everywhere, so there's blood pools obscuring the area that we have to suck out to do anything with the stuff underneath. All the while, there's four Deftera are spreading tumors everywhere, and it basically comes down to sheer luck if they collide in a timely manner, and if the same-colored ones collide, it makes everything worse. And it's just straight up random. Worse yet, when I try to suck out the Deftera's fluids, sometimes I just get interrupted for no apparent reason. And don't forget, once you've weakened the Deftera enough that they can be cut out, they start wreaking havoc and doing major damage. If the patient is below 30 vitals or so when that happens, they basically just die. And because so much is happening, if you ever have to stop to recover vitals, you're going to fall behind and never catch up. I tried to reduce the load by using the healing touch, but somehow I was having a hell of a time inputting it correctly, so I was just wasting time while the patient bled out.

Readers, I am not an angry person by nature. But this really, really...really...pissed me off. The combination of the unfairness of the surgery combined with the fact that I have to repeat two unrelated surgeries every time I failed was really pushing me to my limits for the first time in this entire game. For my mental well-being, I eventually caved and switched the difficulty to easy. It's good that I did, too, because the fourth surgery requires you to deal with another Paraskevi, except this one is right next to the heart and full-sized. This is where I figured out what should've been perhaps easy to understand in hindsight: a Paraskevi piece will only burrow if it's left un-stunned for too long. So as long as you take caution and regularly re-stun all pieces present, you'll be fine. On easy mode, anyway. Still, just to tie off this hideous episode with a bow, I did lose at this surgery once more before finishing off the whole affair.

After that, the 'final boss' is a bit anticlimactic. We find that Hoffman was infected with Savato, so we have to fight it. This strain has a gimmick where the web can hurt the patient more if it goes for too long without being cut, but that barely made an impact, and it played out pretty much the same as the last Savato. Long, but not all that hard, in the grand scheme of things. After that, we get the epilogue, and there's not really much to say. It's the happy ending you'd expect, more or less. Caduceus Europe is very sorry that they tried to create a new life-saving treatment, and promise to never do it again. Derek and Angie go home. Beyond that, I'm not invested in these characters to be that concerned where their lives end up after this, but it seems like they're doing fine, so, you know. That's good.

Beating the game unlocks a new set of extra-difficult postgame surgeries. I...may just skip these. We'll see. But either way, we're not quite done with Trauma Center: Second Opinion yet. Join me next time, when I pull together the threads of the game's narrative to form a coherent whole that I have only hinted at until now.