(This is the 16th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)

Dr. Mario released on July 27, 1990 for Game Boy and NES in Japan before releasing in NA later that year. It was often compared to Tetris and Columns at the time, as it's a game about blocks (in this game: pills) falling from above, which need to be placed in a way that creates matches before you run out of space.

The game was a commercial success thanks to the popularity of Mario, as it sold over 10 million copies worldwide. It received a bit of backlash for including pills in a kids game (see What They Said At The Time section), but has otherwise been received very well, leading to multiple follow-ups being released over the years.

I found Dr. Mario to be a fun alternative to Tetris with a lot to like. More on the game in detail below.

STORYTELLING

There is no story in-game. All you will find in the manual is a small convo between Dr. Mario and nurse Toadstool where she tells him that an experiment has gone out of control and led to the quick spreading of viruses.

It's a different premise for a Mario game, especially at the time, and some didn't find it as charming as Nintendo may have intended, though you can read more on that in the "What They Said At The Time" section. Personally, I understand how some parents wouldn't buy this game for their children, but I wouldn't get worried that such a theme would have a negative effect on my children myself, especially with proper supervision if needs be (not that I have any as of now).

But yes, beware, the game is about throwing pills into a jar to kill viruses because Mario and his nurse have had experiments go wrong.

GAMEPLAY

This is Nintendo's take on Tetris pretty much, though there is more than enough of a difference to warrant it being its own thing. First off, it has a theme. Mario is a Doctor in this one and instead of throwing differently shaped blocks, he throws pills. He throws them in a jar that has viruses in it, which come in three different colors, blue, yellow and red.

Pills have two halves and each half can be one of the three colors, so you can half blue-yellow, yellow-red or even red-red pills. These can be lined up vertically or horizontally and also be flipped, as you would expect. You need to stack up four of them either horizontally next to, or vertically on top of, one of the viruses to kill it. Removing all viruses clears the stage and lets you move to the next one, where there are more viruses than before, up until a max level of Level 20 with 84 viruses, though I've read that you can go all the way to Level 24 even (not selectable in the menu from the start).

You can adjust the speeds from low to medium to high and start with the lowest amount of viruses if you want. You can also choose one of two tracks to listen to while you play, "Feverish" or "Chill". Plus, there is a 2 Player mode too, which is pretty fun if you are looking for an unusual coop game to play.

Overall, I'd say I enjoy Tetris more and find it more addicting, but Dr. Mario certainly scratches the itch of a Puzzle game of this type. My main complaint that negatively affected the pacing of gameplay was whenever you would put four pill-halves of the same color on top of each other and they would 'pop', the adjacent pill-halves would fall down in this agonizingly slow pace. It just doesn't suit a game like this to wait for up to 5 seconds for the half to fall down in my opinion.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE

No voice acting. Sound design is fine, would have sometimes liked a more cheerful sound when pills would break. The music is the highlight here. There are two main tunes, one called "Feverish" and one called "Chill", both of which are extremely catchy and fit the mood of the gameplay perfectly. It's a shame that the soundtrack is pretty much limited to these two tracks but it's a minor complaint considering how nice to listen to both tracks are. Couldn't tell you which one I prefer, but I'm gonna go with Chill for today.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN

It's nothing special graphically. If anything, the only noticeable part was the background during gameplay, which made me kinda dizzy when staring at it for too long.

ATMOSPHERE

This game was pretty much focused on both gameplay and the soundtrack combining to provide an addictive experience. The presentation was made to be cute in the typical Nintendo style, and it definitely is a charming game, but there isn't really much to it since it's a static game where you simply see pills moving down and viruses reacting to being killed. It's fine.

CONTENT

There are a few options to adjust difficulty, and then there is the gameplay. There isn't much else you need when playing a game like this, so it's good content for gameplay-only enthusiasts, but not for full-package connoisseurs.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN

As mentioned somewhere above, my only frustration with this game is how it can take you out of it whenever pill-halves fall for up to 5 seconds and all you can do is watch. It's an odd pace-breaker for a game that is supposed to be paced more or less fast, depending on the speed you put it on. But even if you have it on slow, you can just pull the pills down fast by pressing the down button. You can't accelerate the very slow fall of pill-halves.

Next to adjusting speed, you can adjust the amount of viruses in the jar when you start. If you start at the lowest setting, the amount will increase over time until you lose. Additionally, you can select which song you want to listen to.

And finally, there is a local 2 Player Mode, which is a pretty cool addition. It's hard to not have a good time with that when playing with someone else.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION

It's a different take on Tetris, and I'd argue it's not necessarily a better one. Clearly it had a ton of people who liked it, and for good reason, but I wouldn't say it moved the needle in any direction as much as Nintendo just smartly capitalized on the popularity of both Tetris and especially Mario at the time.

REPLAYABILITY

There is an ending to this game believe it or not. Usually replayability AFTER beating a game is what I consider for this segment, but for a game like this, I'll have to adjust my definition, because obviously the game is replayable as heck. It's the main idea behind the game. Play it. Play it some more. Get good at it. Get even better. It's a lot of fun and easy to jump into at whichever difficulty you prefer, so replayability is as high as it gets.

PLAYABILITY

The game worked well at all times.

OVERALL

If you enjoy Tetris and Tetris-likes, and have no issues with Mario, I don't see you not enjoying your time with this one. It's fun, it's response, it's difficulty-adjustable and it has two banger tracks. If you're mainly looking for fun gameplay, you'll get your fill here. If you're looking for a more complete package, I'd look elsewhere however.

WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME

• Andy Eddy for VGCE, Issue 21(Oct 90): "It's disturbing to think that a parent may find a video game "teaching" their child that playing with pills is okay." | I've gone over this topic in the "Storytelling" part of my review, but this is the loudest opposition I've read on Dr. Mario and thought it was worth sharing. I understand how some parents don't like the idea behind this game, but I thought he was overreacting a bit when reading this. Looking into it a bit closer, it turns out Andy Eddy was suing a doctor for giving his child wrong prescriptions (according to Wiki), so suddenly his rant made a lot more sense, though I still disagree that this game could have turned any child into a pill addict.
• Steve Harris for Electronic Gaming Monthly, Issue 16(Nov 90): "Dr. Mario is an annoyingly over-involved version of Tetris meets Columns" | Unexpectedly poor reviews by the two magazines I found that talked about the game, but player reception tells a different tale