In between levels (ie operations) there is a LOT of dialogue. By a lot, I mean screen after screen of text. You can tell this was a DS port because there is very little sound and/or voice acting in the game. The nurse just keeps saying “doctor” while you’re in the operation and you’ll have to read the screen. In between operations, there is just way too much text. This isn’t 1985 and I shouldn’t have to scroll through that much text to enjoy the game. Seriously, I think the TI 99/4A version of Microsurgeon had more voice content…it even paged a doctor. You can bypass the text by pressing the “-“ button. The storyline isn’t bad, but it is straight out of a soap opera.

The graphics are acceptable. The cutscenes have no video, you’ll just see a picture of the person “talking” and by talking I mean text. The patients are not very detailed. The women are always covered up or gender neutral. While I can understand why the developers did this, it does not make the game as realistic as it could have been. The game isn’t too graphic – for example I truly hope that if my body was cut up, it would not look like it does in the game– and that’s probably so that the game could maintain its Teen rating. It’s definitely not for the squeamish however, as the ‘motorcycle accident’ level is a little, um, bloody. I wouldn’t keep the young kids around while playing the game. Teen is an appropriate rating.

If working as a doctor ever interested you, this game has it’s moments of fun. It will not give you training for the real world, but it does pass the time nicely. It’s about 10-12 hours of gameplay overall, and I did keep playing the game as I wanted to find out what happens with the story line, which is a usual over the top Japanese type of story. I don’t want to ruin it for you, as you’ll enjoy playing it.

It’s definitely worth a rental and if you’ve never played the original, probably worth a purchase.