Dr. Mario
My first ever Nintendo review for my website is Dr. Mario and it's far from my favorite Nintendo game, but I was playing it for a few hours and decided that this would make for a good review. Dr. Mario was released in 1990 by Nintendo and many people considered it Nintendo's way of jumping onto the bandwagon of tetris clones, but what do I think of it? Well on with the review. The story of Dr. Mario is never really explained in the game and was somewhat explained in the manual, but I'm just making my own one up anyways...so here we go...A new day begins in the mushroom kingdom, but this day is like no other. Mario wakes up and realizes that there are no Koopa Troopas wandering around, the princess is safe in the castle and no Goombas are about either. So Mario gets to enjoy a peaceful walk through Mushroom Kingdom or so it seems. As Mario is walking along he sees Toad, but he doesn't look to be feeling very well. Mario asks him what's wrong, Toad responds saying that he feels sick. Mario then invites Toad to his house because Mario explains to Toad that before he became a plumber he was working on getting his degree as a doctor. So Toad surprised, but relieved follows Mario home.
Back at Mario's house he pulls out his doctor gear and well does a thorough examination on Toad. He then realizes to his horror that Toad is infected by thousands of viruses! It's a good thing Mario found Toad when he did because these viruses are far more terrifying then anything Bowser's minions could ever come up with. Infact maybe this is Bowser's scheme to completely take over the Mushroom Kingdom, but right now Mario cannot prove this as he has a problem right now that he has to attend to first. Mario manages to capture some of the viruses in a jar to try and see if there is a way to eradicate them...and so the game begins. It's Dr. Mario time!
Mario and I work together well on the mysterious zero level despite the fact Mario has no clue as to what he is actually doing.
That's a better story than the one in the manual I'm sure and hey Nintendo probably spent a longer time thinking up the one in the manual. I came up with that in a couple minutes! Anyways, just how did Bowser infect Toad with thousands of viruses though? Or Maybe Toad just caught something and that is all and Mario is just determined to make him feel better because they are friends, I think. Well that's up to you to ponder as there is absolutely no time to waste! Mario must make his friend feel better so he starts off with just a few viruses to figure out a way to destroy them. I soon found out why Mario isn't a doctor anymore infact if you didn't know Mario dropped out of doctor school to become a plumber! So it's basically up to me to solve this problem. Mario throws out random colored pills and I soon realize very quickly on my own that to destroy the viruses I have to match up the colored pills to the same colored viruses. Unfortunately no matter how much I yell at Mario he never catches on ever! Yes I know this from personal experience. Mario actually looks like he's stoned or something too. You'd also think that the viruses would be smarter in the sense that their only weakness is a matching color pill. I mean geez I wish some of the diseases now days were this easy to figure out a cure for them.
Honestly now, what the hell kind of congratulations is this?! And there's more, if you wait a little longer the text disapears and a book flies across the sky! Yes a freaking book!
I am being a little hard on Mario though, I never expected that he even went to doctor school in the first place. Mario and I worked together pretty well infact we even both got this silly looking celebration screen after level five! I still don't understand it...are those the viruses sitting on top of the tree in the middle of nowhere? And why?!?! I couldn't even believe it when that damn book flew across flapping it's umm pages. Anyways we move onto level six and unfortunately things aren't going as smooth as they were in the earlier levels. Now with increasing amounts of viruses in the jars (Mario just can't keep trying to destroy three or four at a time that would just take too long and Toad needs help immediately) things become tougher and when you fail to destroy all of them and instead make a mess of the jar by having pills laying all around. Mario is then unable to throw anymore in so I have to start over. Thus making all of my past efforts a absolute waste of time. Even worse though Mario makes this expression like it isn't his fault. It's almost always your damn fault Mario, no wonder why you dropped out of doctor school!!
Dammit Mario, do you know what the color red is? Give me a red pill! Don't give me this "well I didn't know" shit, do you realize how many times I did ask for a red pill?
Anyways the thing to do at these levels is to always think one step ahead I always try to look and see what the upcoming pill is going to be so then I know exactly where I should put it or if I'm screwed the next drop. I can't believe I just actually gave some advice! Well I guess there's a first for everything! Anyways I managed to tolerate Mario's stupidity and made my way to level ten with things going well enough and got treated to yet another celebration screen after it. It's the same deal with the viruses in the tree just that this time only a chicken flies by. Yep these cut scenes of course fit perfectly into this game so I'm glad they put a lot of thought into them.
I'm doing good enough mostly thanks to myself, but as you can see Mario screwed me over again with the next pill. Hey wait that's the red pill I wanted before!
Okay so this continues on and on with more viruses in the jar for each level. There are a total of twenty one levels of breath taking fun, intense strategy and unparelled excitement. Since I basically just started playing this game two hours ago, I don't think I'm doing that bad I can get past level ten which is around the halfway point, but I haven't given too much effort to later levels as I stopped to write this review, but I for one don't know if I have the mad skills to beat level twenty yet. Can there possibly be anymore viruses in a single jar? Well as I play Dr. Mario some more on a later date I may or may not make more comments about some of the later levels, but for now that'll be it. Let's go over some of the other parts of the game. Gameplay I think is pretty solid, yet it can definitely be frustrating especially when it seems like Mario is working against me and causes more problems by intentionally giving me the wrong pills. Maybe he shouldn't of ate those magical mushrooms for breakfest as they have seemed to have effected his better judgement.
Hey Mario your actions already scare me, yet don't you even think this is going a little overboard? How about we cut this in half and make another level eh?
Graphics: The graphics basically just get the job done and that's all. I can't really compliment them much, but they are clean looking so that's good. That odd cutscene after I beat level five actually disturbed me a lot, so much so that I had nightmares that night of flying books attacking me. I don't even know if I want to try and beat level fifteen or twenty. Anyways the game came out in 1990 so it really wasn't one of the system's earlier games, but then again the graphics don't have to be that spectacular as the focus is obviosuly placed elsewhere. The game is pretty colorful so that's a good thing, but as I said the graphics basically just get the job done and that's really all that's asked of most people right? Well of course not, but I have to move on.
Music and sounds: The music is average at best. You get to pick between a whole two songs to hear during the levels. They are named Chill and Fever. You can switch them at the level selection screen if you'd like. I probably like Chill better, it's got a better beat to it then Fever and as the name suggests it sounds good just chilling out to it while I try to destroy all of the viruses. Fever is a bit more upbeat, but I think it's just too cheesy sounding. That's probably why I like Chill better. Fever also causes me to go into unexplainable seizures upon hearing it so that may be another reason why I don't like it. There are sounds where they should be, but I wasn't expecting much either. The sounds of eliminating the bacteria is a satisfying enough sound for me, though others may disagree on that point.
Challenge: Well the challenge varies from very easy to extremely hard. So even if you suck bad at this game you don't have to worry, you can just keep playing like level three over and over again as the viruses are in different places each time. If you are feeling brave you can challenge the higher levels. As I said before I got up to around level ten without too much real trouble. I plan to play onward when I feel like it. The game also has three different speeds the pills drop. The speeds are slow, meduim and fast. Which means that the pills drop at a slowed down rate, at their regular rate or at a increased rate. Oh yeah that's pretty obvious and didn't really need a explanation, wow don't I feel like a dumbass now. I just play medium really. I think Mario's inability to think properly and a increased drop rate would result in something far worse than can be imagined. So it's really a good challenge for everyone I think. Plus trying to get the blocks to rotate in the right way and maneuvering them can sometimes be pretty hard, but when I make a really good placement, man that feels great. At the same time though a few wrong moves could cost me the level or at least lots of time correcting my mistakes.
Fun and replayability: Well those are pretty important parts of any game. I'd say this game is pretty fun even when Mario is giving me the shaft when it comes to the pills I want. I also find it fun to yell at Mario when he repeatedly gives me the same exact pill I don't want three or four times in a row. As far as replayability goes I'd say it's pretty high. This is coming from someone who basically doesn't like Tetris (sorry people) but in that game all you do is stack blocks over and over again. I never found that very exciting, Infact I can think of a dozen things more exciting...but unfortunately none come to my mind right now. Hey at least in this game there is some point to it and how could you not laugh at Mario in his staring role as a doctor.
The Bottom Line: Well I personally think this is a pretty good game. It provides a really good challenge for everyone and has pretty addicting gameplay. Are there better games to spend your time with? Well I'd have to say yes, but if ya just want to sit down and play a pretty simple game that involves some excercise in brain activity this is it.
Overall Rating:
7/10
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