Dr. Mario is one of the last games Nintendo released during the waning years of the Nintendo. Back then, Puzzle games like Dr. Mario were all the rage, per IGN. As such, it's no surprise that it garnered high praise from the gamers of that time, even scoring a high place in the list of 100 best Nintento game of all time published in Nintendo Power's 100th issue, per the Mario Wiki.
But what is it about the game that made it so successful?
Dr. Mario Details: History, Gameplay, Reception
Dr. Mario is an arcade-style puzzle video game from Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Game Boy in 1990. The game features Nintendo's twist on Tetris, in that players' goal is to clear viruses from the screen.
Interestingly enough, the game is the first puzzle game to feature Mario, per Retro Gamer.
To be specific, the conjoined blocks from Tetris are replaced with vitamin capsules that come in different colors. These colors, when matched with a virus on the screen horizontally or vertically, will delete both the virus and that side of the vitamin capsule. These vitamin capsules also act similarly to the blocks in Tetris, as matching at least four or more of the same colored pieces will clear that line for other vitamins capsules to fall into, even if there are no viruses within them.
The player is informed of what the remaining viruses are through the magnifying glass around the bottom-left of the screen, where they slowly revolve around the glass. If a virus is eliminated, that virus' color will flinch and the rest of the viruses stop moving. If all viruses of that color are cleared from the screen, the virus' color will disappear in the magnifying glass after flinching.
Players will get a "game over" notification when the vitamin capsules are stacked so high that it reaches the top of the screen.
Dr. Mario also features a single-player and two-player mode. While the single-player mode retains the previously mentioned gameplay, the two-player option gives the players of the game a challenge: whoever clears their screen first wins the game. Players can choose the game's speed and level before the game begins.
However, only the Game Boy version of Dr. Mario supports a two-player mode, and that requires a Game Link cable to enable it for play.
The game was released just in time for the 1990 holiday season, which helped the game's sales and popularity to skyrocket. The game placed 45th in Nintendo Power's list of the 100 Best Nintendo games of all time. However, some parents were critical of the game, and ACE magazine mentioned that the game was repetitive and that it "smelled of plagiarism," giving the game a score of 510/1000.
Dr. Mario Remakes and Re-Releases
The game was brought into the modern world from the retro era through the Game Boy version, which was released on the Nintendo 3Ds' Virtual Console in North America on October 3, 2012.
It also had its fair share of sequels, such as Dr. Mario for the Nintendo 64, Dr. Mario Online Rx for the Nintendo Wii, Dr. Mario Express for the DSi, and Dr. Mario World for mobile devices, per a separate Mario Wiki page.
