Dr. Mario

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This article is about the video game. For other uses, see Dr. Mario (disambiguation).

Dr. Mario
Composer(s)
Hirokazu Tanaka[10]
SeriesDr. Mario
Platform(s)NES, Arcade, Game Boy, SNES (Satellaview, Nintendo Power), Game Boy Advance
Release
July 27, 1990
  • Game Boy
    Arcade
    Super Famicom
    )
PlayChoice-10

Dr. Mario is a 1990 puzzle video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Famicom, and Game Boy. It was produced by Gunpei Yokoi and designed by Takahiro Harada. The soundtrack was composed by Hirokazu Tanaka.

It is a

level
.

Dr. Mario was a commercial success, with more than 10 million copies sold worldwide across all platforms. It received generally positive reviews, appearing on several lists of "Best Nintendo Games of All Time". It has been

Classic NES Series. It was modified into minigames in WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames!, Brain Age 2: More Training in Minutes a Day!, and Brain Age: Concentration Training. Dr. Luigi is a spin-off for Wii U, released in 2013 as part of the Year of Luigi
celebration.

Gameplay

Dr. Mario focuses on eliminating the viruses in the playing field by aligning them with capsules of matching color.

Dr. Mario is a

level. A game over occurs if capsules fill the playing field in a way that obstructs the bottle's narrow neck. After each 5th level is completed on Medium or High difficulty, up to level 20, a cutscene shows the virus trio sitting on a tree as music plays and an object flies across the screen.[13]

The options screen configures the starting

level, game speed, and music. The player chooses a starting level between 0 and 20 that determines the number of viruses to clear, and one of three speeds of the falling capsules. The player's score is based on the elimination of viruses and the chosen game speed, with bonus points for clearing more than 1 in a single line.[13]

Dr. Mario offers a

gaming mode in which two players compete in separate playing fields. Each player's goal is to clear the private playing field of viruses first. Eliminating multiple viruses or initiating chain reactions can add capsules to the opponent's playing field. A player wins a single game upon eliminating all the viruses or upon the other player's bottle filling. The first player to win three games wins overall.[13]

Development

A Vs. Dr. Mario arcade machine

Dr. Mario was produced by Gunpei Yokoi, creator of the Game Boy and Game & Watch handheld systems.[8] Takahiro Harada, producer of the Metroid series, was its designer.[9] Its music was composed by Hirokazu Tanaka, and has been re-used and arranged such as in the Super Smash Bros. series.

Re-releases

Dr. Mario spawned several

PlayChoice-10. Vs. Dr. Mario was first shown at Nintendo's Seventh Annual Distributor Meeting in San Diego, and both versions were released simultaneously in August 1990.[6][7]

An enhanced remake of Dr. Mario was paired with Tetris in the Super Nintendo Entertainment System compilation game Tetris & Dr. Mario, released on 30 December 1994.[14] This was re-released in Japan on 30 March 1997, as a downloadable game for the Super Famicom's Satellaview peripheral, with the name Dr. Mario BS Version.[15] It was re-released again in Japan for the Super Famicom's and Game Boy's downloadable Nintendo Power cartridges.[16][17]

The NES version was ported twice to the

launch games for Nintendo Switch Online on September 19, 2018.[22] The original Game Boy version was re-released on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console in 2011 and 2012, and on the Nintendo Switch Online service on March 12, 2024.[3]

Reception

Sales

In Japan, 2.08 million copies were sold for the

Famicom, and 248,045 for the Game Boy Advance, for a total of 3,858,045 cartridges sold in Japan.[28] In North America, 2.5 million copies were sold within six weeks of release.[29] Worldwide, 5.34 million copies were sold for the Game Boy and 4.85 million for the Nintendo Entertainment System,[30]
for a total of 10,438,045 cartridges sold worldwide across all platforms.

Contemporary reviews

Dr. Mario received generally positive reviews, although some parents were critical of the premise of medicine in a children's game.[citation needed]

The Game Boy version received positive reviews from Joystick[25] and Zero magazines, the latter comparing it favorably with Tetris and Connect Four while stating it is "easy to play and impossible to master".[27] ACE criticized the uninspiring graphics, repetitive play, and "plagiarism" while comparing it unfavorably with Tetris and Connect Four.[23]

GamePro reviewed the Tetris & Dr. Mario compilation very positively. They praised the Mixed Match mode and the SNES enhanced graphics and sounds, and concluded "Sharp controls and absorbing action are what make these two classics even better as a pair than they were alone."[24] Next Generation, in contrast, said the compilation was only significant as the SNES debut of Tetris, summarizing that "Yeah, it's great, but chances are you own a copy of one or both of these games already." They did, however, praise Nintendo for having the "cojones" to package its Tetris-inspired game with Tetris.[26]

Retrospective reception

Allgame praised the NES version, stating that on its release, "when puzzle games were flooding the market, Dr. Mario stands out as one of the best, combining a smooth learning curve, playful graphics and memorable tunes" and "fundamental concepts may be simple, but the addictive gameplay becomes progressively more complex as the speed increases and additional viruses are added."[34]

Dr. Mario was rated the 134th best game on a Nintendo system in

GamesRadar ranked it the 13th best NES game ever made, calling it "one of the most celebrated of the [puzzle] genre".[44] Game Informer's Ben Reeves called it the seventh best Game Boy game.[45] In 2019, PC Magazine included Dr. Mario on their "The 10 Best Game Boy Games".[46]

The

1UP.com noted that the game's "color-matching action is more engrossing than Mario Bros.' turtle-punching platform hopping", but strongly questioned whether this re-release is worth its sale price by itself when a version of Dr. Mario was included in another Game Boy Advance game, WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames!.[48]

Legacy

See also: List of Mario puzzle games

After the commercial success of Dr. Mario, Nintendo released several follow-up games.

online multiplayer via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. Dr. Mario Express, released in 2009 for the Nintendo DSi, does not support multiplayer gameplay. Dr. Luigi was released in 2013 with Luigi as a playable character, all the modes in Dr. Mario Online Rx, and a new mode with L-shaped capsules. The latest installment, Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure, was released in 2015 and introduced power-ups to the series. Dr. Mario World is a mobile game
.

Various games in the

unlockable playable character.[50]

Dr. Wario replaces Mario with Wario, as an

unlockable minigame in WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames!.[51] A simplified version of Dr. Mario is in Brain Age 2: More Training in Minutes a Day! as the "Virus Buster" minigame, using the touch screen to drag the capsules around the playing field.[52]

The viruses are enemies in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team. They change colors when attacked, and are all defeated when they are all the same color.[53]

In 2018 the Classic Tetris World Championship featured a Dr. Mario championship as a 'side event.' [54]

Notes

References

  1. ^ "All NES Games" (PDF). Nintendo. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 June 2014. Retrieved 9 August 2015.
  2. ^ "Dr. Mario Game Boy". IGN. Retrieved 10 December 2011.
  3. ^ a b "Dr. Mario (3DS Virtual Console / Game Boy)". NintendoLife. Retrieved 6 November 2011.
  4. ^ "Dr. Mario. (Registration Number VA0000470800)". United States Copyright Office. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
  5. ^ "Dr. Mario. By Nintendo Company, Ltd. NES version. (Registration Number PA0000606775)". United States Copyright Office. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
  6. ^ a b "Nintendo Bows VS. Dr. Mario Pak At San Diego Distributor Meeting". RePlay. Vol. 16, no. 1. August 1990. pp. 44–46.
  7. ^ a b "Rx: Nintendo". RePlay. Vol. 16, no. 1. October 1990. pp. 68, 70.
  8. ^ a b "You're Pretty Negative!". Shigesato Itoi Asks in Place of Iwata: Super Mario Bros. 25th Anniversary. Nintendo of America, Inc. 24 September 2010. Retrieved 25 September 2010.
  9. ^ a b "Producer Takahiro Harada on Wario Land: Shake It!". GameSpy. 20 November 2008.
  10. ^ "Hirokazu Tanaka's Works" (in Japanese). Sporadic Vacuum. Archived from the original on 19 January 2011. Retrieved 21 November 2011.
  11. doi:10.1080/17493460601173366
    . Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  12. ACE
    . No. 38. p. 91. Describing how the game works is best done by taking Tetris, adding Connect 4 and throwing in Dominoes.
  13. ^ a b c Dr. Mario Instruction Booklet. Nintendo. 1990. NES-VU-USA.
    "Dr. Mario instructions" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 April 2011.
  14. ^ "Tetris & Dr. Mario". IGN. Retrieved 13 November 2011.
  15. ^ "Dr. Mario International Releases". Giant Bomb. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  16. ^ "Dr. Mario" (in Japanese). Nintendo. Archived from the original on 23 October 2006. Retrieved 17 December 2011.
  17. ^ "Dr. Mario" (in Japanese). Nintendo. Archived from the original on 16 September 2006. Retrieved 17 December 2011.
  18. ^ Harris, Craig (16 April 2004). "Famicom Mini Series 2". IGN. Retrieved 10 October 2011.
  19. ^ Burner, Rice (5 December 2005). "Dr. Mario & Puzzle League". GamePro. Archived from the original on 10 November 2009.
  20. ^ "Nintendo GameCube Preview Disc (Cube)". GameSpy. Retrieved 14 December 2011.
  21. ^ "At Mushroom Kingdom Hospital, nasty viruses are on the loose". NintendoLife. Retrieved 21 October 2014.
  22. ^ Good, Owen S. (13 September 2018). "Nintendo Switch Online has these 20 classic NES games". Polygon. Retrieved 5 April 2019.
  23. ^
    ACE
    . No. 38. p. 91.
  24. ^ a b "Tetris & Dr. Mario". GamePro. No. 69. IDG. April 1995. p. 86.
  25. ^ a b JM Destroy (December 1990). "Dr Mario". Joystick (in French). No. 11. p. 132.
  26. ^
    Imagine Media
    . April 1995. p. 100.
  27. ^ a b "Dr Mario". Zero. No. 14. December 1990. p. 127.
  28. ^ "Game Search". Game Data Library. Famitsu. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  29. ^ Ehrlich, Willie (6 January 1991). "Beeping Invasion". Lancaster Eagle-Gazette. p. 13. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
  30. ISBN 978-1770856172
    . Retrieved 22 April 2017.
  31. CBS Interactive
    . Retrieved 18 June 2019.
  32. CBS Interactive
    . Retrieved 2 December 2011.
  33. ^
    CBS Interactive
    . Retrieved 2 December 2011.
  34. ^
    Allgame. Archived from the original
    on 14 November 2014. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
  35. ^ Bob Colayco (3 November 2004). "Classic NES Series: Dr. Mario Review". Archived from the original on 20 May 2013.
  36. ^ a b Craig Harris (26 October 2004). "Dr. Mario (Classic NES Series)".
  37. ^ "Simple, but infinitely fun". Nintendo Power. No. 186. December 2004. p. 148.
  38. ^ "Dr. Mario". Play Magazine: 100. December 2004.
  39. ^ Austin Starr. "Dr. Mario". Retrieved 2 December 2011.
  40. ^ "NP Top 200". Nintendo Power. Vol. 200. February 2006. pp. 58–66.
  41. ScrewAttack's Top 10. ScrewAttack.com. 13 August 2011. Archived from the original
    on 11 December 2013. Retrieved 1 September 2013.
  42. ^ "51. Dr. Mario". Top 100 Best NES Games of All Time. IGN. Retrieved 15 September 2022.
  43. ^ "Top Ten Tuesday: Best 8-Bit Soundtracks". IGN. 8 August 2007. p. 1. Retrieved 11 October 2011.
  44. GamesRadar
    . 16 April 2012. Retrieved 5 December 2013.
  45. ^ Reeves, Ben (24 June 2011). "The 25 Best Game Boy Games Of All Time". Game Informer. Archived from the original on 19 February 2014. Retrieved 6 December 2013.
  46. ^ Edwards, Benji (17 October 2019). "The 10 Best Game Boy Games". PCMAG. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
  47. ^ Reed, Kristan (12 January 2005). "Classic NES Series: Dr. Mario Review". Eurogamer.
  48. 1UP.com. 2 June 2004. Archived from the original
    on 11 May 2013.
  49. ^ "Full Song List with Secret Songs". Smash Bros Series website. Nintendo. 3 April 2008. Archived from the original on 1 November 2012.
  50. ^ "Super Smash Bros. Melee Guide & Walkthrough – GameCube – IGN". IGN. p. 4. Retrieved 10 October 2011.
  51. ^ Jeff Gerstmann (27 May 2003). "WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! Review". GameSpot.
  52. ^ Metts, Jonathan (3 June 2008). "Brain Age 2 Impressions". Nintendo World Report.
  53. ^ Aaron Riccio (5 August 2013). "Mario & Luigi: Dream Team". Slant Magazine.
  54. ^ "Dr. Mario Championship RDS. 1-2 — Can Tetris Masters Dr. Mario?". YouTube.

External links

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