Thanks to the latest JRPG entry, the Persona series has seen massive popularity that's helped establish itself as a major competitor in the game industry. Persona features fairly ordinary high schoolers who live in the modern world. The problems they face are generally dramatic, but they still deal with everyday issues. For players looking for more of these elements in their games, fellow Atlus franchise Trauma Center could provide fans with what they're looking for.
The first game in the Sega-published series, Revelations: Persona, released in 1996 with a level of success that would carry through all future games. Players may spend a lot of time battling Shadows with their Personas, but they also socialize with carefully crafted characters on the regular, both of which highlight one of the main focuses of the franchise: exploring intimate and often dark aspects of human nature. For players who specifically enjoyed this aspect of the game, the Trauma Center series could serve as a new favorite. The games match the interpersonal drama of their own relationships with the larger plot against a bio-terrorist cell to create a story that would not be out of place in the Persona franchise.
Trauma Center Was Atlus' Visual Novel Era
Exclusive to the Nintendo DS and Wii, Atlus' series began in 2005 with Trauma Center: Under the Knife. The games feature characters working in a hospital in the near future where the cure for cancer and most other diseases has already been discovered, now find themselves facing a man-made disease known as GUILT. Players control Derek Stiles in visual novel segments before they're thrust into surgery simulation in first person view.
The Trauma Center series shares a lot with its fellow Atlus titles. Later games in the franchise, such as Trauma Center: New Blood, expanded on the world showing that the evils the characters were facing were the result of others' hubris and good intentions turned ill, particularly in the case of Master Vakhushti needing to be infected with the virus to stay alive. Much like the follies that turn otherwise ordinary characters in the Persona games into monsters, the villains of the visual novel series are often the victims of their own egos. Unfortunately for interested players, unless Trauma Center is one of the teased about unannounced Atlus projects for 2023, the games may prove to be hard to get a hold of.
The last Trauma Center game, Trauma Team, came out in 2010 and Atlus has no apparent plans to port the Trauma Center titles. Would-be players might find the games inaccessible without older Nintendo consoles that the games originally came out on, but for those willing to experiment in a bit of not-quite-retro gaming, the extra effort may be worth it. The common thread among Atlus' games is an attention to the development of the characters and letting their explorations of themselves drive the story. This is as true for the Persona franchise as it is for the Trauma Center games.
Fans of Persona that find themselves interested in the studio's other work may be disappointed at the extra steps needed just to play the games. And, with Atlus having a long line up of upcoming titles, there may be other existing or new games that players could use to get their fix. But fan's of the franchise's focus on a small group bonding through troubling times might find what they're looking for in the Trauma Center games.
Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden are launching on January 19 for PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.