a comprehensive look at dr. mario
Fact: Dr. Mario is the Greatest game of all time
Have you ever tried playing Dr. Mario? If so, congratulations. You will NEVER, EVER play a better video game. Which version did you play though? That'll change shit up drastically. Don’t you want to be the person to play the greatest version of the greatest game? Of course you do. If by any chance you’re offended by the fact that Dr. Mario is the greatest video game of all time, please understand that your opinion is wrong and get off my website. The following is a list of Dr. Mario versions and what I think of them in release order. Select the one that feels right to you. Choosing anything other than the GBA rerelease of the NES version is the wrong choice. Please feel bad about yourself for not doing so.
Virus (NES Prototype #1, 1989)
Before Dr. Mario, we had Virus. Here, Mario shoves pills down a dog's throat in an attempt to save it from a cold. I didn’t know dogs get colds, that the cold was curable, or that it’s the result of 3 multicolored viruses. This is the only game in the series that depicts the virus's work in full. Every other game aside from Dr. Mario 64 leaves you questioning what disease they cause. The virus's names may in fact hint at what kind of disease they cause, but that information is contained solely within the game’s manual, and I’m here to drug people, not read books.
6/10
Virus (NES Prototype #2, 1990)
This new version of the game has several crucial features added. For one thing, Press Start appears on the title screen. I wasn’t sure what to do the first time I played virus, and this version clarified things considerably. NORM mode was also changed to NORM. mode. I generally prefer the original NORM mode, but I don’t begrudge those of you that enjoy NORM. mode. You’re weird people, but we live in a weird world.
9/10
Virus (Playchoice 10 Prototype #3, 1990)
This version of the game is the first to feature our virus friends. You’ve got Blue Guy, the mascot of Koreijou.org and the best virus in the game, Satan, the third wheel of the group. and of course there’s Bill, pictured here wearing some kind of penis over his mouth. Supposedly, this version was only playable at a Chuck -e- Cheese restaurant in 1990, which means that our yellow virus friend is definitely on some kind of list.
1/10
Dr. Mario (NES Prototype #4, 1990)
Largely the same as the one everyone knows and is forced by me to love, except this time it’s now called Dr. Mario. Blue Guy, the greatest video game character of all time, is positioned differently, and might I add, superioriorily, at the top left corner of the… whatever the hell that thing is they stand in. Some kind of room? What’s even going on here on this title screen. Do they live in there? Bill the Yellow Virus has a proper mouth now, and had his charges dropped by virtue of the fact that he’s a cartoon virus and therefore, not real. Dr. Mario looks like he needs help, but he won’t be getting it from me because I’m not a doctor like he is.
40/10
Dr, Mario (NES Prototype #5, 1990)
This one has had a title screen upgrade. Mario has a smug face and is wearing loafers. Doctors wear boots! Ya gotta believe me! Sir, I’m sorry, they’ve gone too far with this one. Completely unacceptable and also par for the course for every release so far, but since I noticed it here this one is getting the full brunt of my rage. They also added a Trademark symbol somewhere.
0/10
Dr, Mario (NES Prototype #6, 1990)
Here we go, this version is absolutely incredible. Dr. Mario gets his boots, and they changed a single byte in the code to an 11 instead of the inferior 10 that it got in the final release. 11! Think about the potential of the number 11. There are 12 months in the year, but what if there were 11? There are 12 to a dozen, but what if 11 were a dozen? Think about it. On the flip side, there are 10 fingers on each human being, but what if it was 11? Dr. Mario Prototype #6 answers all of these questions and more.
11/10
Dr. Mario (NES, 1990)
The final version of the NES version of Dr. Mario, now complete and final. Listen, this is the greatest video game of all time, finally finished. Did Nintendo even realize what kind of pandemic they were releasing upon Earth? Do you? Think about it, a FUN PANDEMIC! Instead of disenfranchised rednecks marching around unintentionally begging for natural selection to take them out. Instead of people dying in misery, they’ll be dying, FOR A GOOD TIME! Dr. Mario’s release marked that, and I was an infant when it happened. Everyone had this game, your mom, your dad, grandma, the dog. They all had a good time too. I wish my brain wasn’t made of mush and various proteins at the time, but what can ya do?
10/10
Dr. Mario (Game Boy, 1990)
Everyone’s favorite* color matching game, now in monochrome! Join Dr. Mario, as he- wears loafers again? Yep, them are loafers. This is unacceptable. The lack of color in a color matching game, I can take. What I will not abide, is that son of a bitch wearing loafers. How dare you insult my intelligence by attempting to slip this under my nose. My nose is nowhere near as large as Mario’s, and I can see quite well underneath it; thank you very much. Get outta my face with this crap.
-800,000,000/10
*if it isn't yours, go to hell
Tetris & Dr. Mario (SNES, 1994)
This time, Dr. Mario is being bundled with some game called Tetris? I’ll be ripping into that shortly, For now, In this version, the viruses are obscured by the magnifying glass. How am I supposed to look at Blue Guy through this thing? He’s there, but I can’t examine him closely. This is the antithesis of magnification. It’s obscuration. Furthermore,The bundling of Dr. Mario with some other game is suspect. You don’t think it can’t sell by itself eh? Why not? Oh, oh, it’s a combo game where you can mix and match the two? That’s the greatest insult of all. Dr. Mario is bordering on perfect, and only falters when Mario is wearing loafers or there’s so other cosmetic problems. You can’t just bundle it with another game! Dr. Mario deserves to be rereleased as is forever, priced unreasonably, and without any kind of added features. Now, I will consider the idea of more Blue Guy, perhaps even some kind of Blue Guy spin off, but w-w-w-we’ll go over that later. This release is an insult to everything that Dr. Mario stands for, and every copy should be confiscated from its owner and destroyed.
7/10
Dr. Mario 64 (Nintendo 64, 2001)
Dr. Mario 64 is the final first party Nintendo 64 release, and they went out with a bang. This is without a doubt the greatest Nintendo 64 game of all time. No other even remotely compares, and in fact, should be eliminated from existence. Sure, there are a lot of modes here, but you can ignore them. Mario’s boots look great in this game, and there’s a story mode, but it doesn’t feature Blue Guy at all, and that’s irredeemable. Wario is there, and as the greatest fictional character in human history second only to Blue Guy, I suppose he’s a ~okay~ substitute. In a house fire, if it came down to a choice between saving my copy of Dr. Mario 64 or my own children, I’d pick Dr. Mario 64. The children can be replaced.
5/10
WarioWare inc. Mega MicroGames (Game Boy Advance, 2003)
When I heard that there was a version of Dr. Mario in here, I was initially against it. When it’s paired with something, that something could potentially overshadow Dr. Mario, and if I become president, I will make that an offense on par with murder. That being said, including it as an unlockable bonus? I mean, way to make your actual game completely worthless, Nintendo. Here, it’s presented as Dr. Wario, and along with giving Mario the boot (figuratively this time) so too have the viruses been swapped out. Unlike Wario, who is one of God’s greatest creations, these new viruses aren’t very good, and are a harbinger of the atrocities you’ll read about later in this very article. They’re ugly and unlike regular Dr. Mario, I feel no remorse upon killing them. I suppose that alone is enough to make up for the lack of Blue Guy.
6/10
Classic NES Series: Dr. Mario (Game Boy Advance, 2004)
We have a winner here folks. Dr. Mario on Game Boy Advance is a direct port of the NES version. There’s no new features, no extra modes, and is horrifically overpriced for what it is. Yes. This is the perfect version of Dr. Mario. Actually, no, this is better than perfect. There’s no way to measure this game’s sheer quality. God himself cowers at the perfection witnessed here. Shamefully, Nintendo never did this again, opting instead to only charge $5 bucks for it, or sometimes give it away for free, which is a disgrace. This time though, it’s overpriced nature and complete lack of innovation make this the definitive version of the game.
100,000,000,000/10
Dr. Mario & Puzzle League (Game Boy Advance, 2005)
There were only four versions of Dr. Mario on Game Boy Advance? That’s not nearly enough. Here, it’s bundled once again with another game. Puzzle League is a game about matching colorful tiles and cleverly setting up combos. It’s a deceptively simple game with a ton of depth and is truly worth your time. You’d be a complete fool not to play Puzzle League. I emphasize this in the same way D.A.R.E. officers would say similar things about drugs. Unlike a D.A.R.E. officer, I won't trick you into informing on your parents. Dr. Mario is also here.
10/10
Dr. Mario Online RX (Wii, 2008)
One day, many many moons ago, I, a young man, fresh, full of life, downloaded Dr. Mario Online RX on the Wii. The next day I woke up in a strange place. I tasted metal in my mouth, and realized that nothing would ever be the same. They did it, those bastards actually did it. Oh, and to think that Nintendo would have more restraint. I suppose I was wrong. Yes, the world was never the same after Nintendo released Dr. Mario Online RX for the Wii. It was no longer the world I grew up in. I found a broken mirror in a bombed out truck stop bathroom and gazed into it. What stared back at me was a 65 year old man.
9/10
Dr. Mario Express (Nintendo DSi, 2009)
I won’t bore you with the details of how I got outta that one, but the moment I returned I immediately sat my ass down at my parents house and waited, every single day, until the day I could download Dr. Mario Express. No matter how much my parents begged, pleaded, threatened, nothing could make me stand up. I was like that guy from "A Man Called Otto". You know the one. The day that Dr. Mario Express finally released, I realized I needed a DSi to play it. Upon getting my hands on one and playing the game, I woke up in a ditch, wondering where I was.
0/10
Game Boy Virtual Console: Dr. Mario (Nintendo 3DS, 2011)
Game Boy Dr. Mario is now portable! The sickos at Nintendo failed to correct it's most glaring error; Dr.Mario wears boots. Not loafers. Boots. Dr. Mario needs his boots. What kind of sick world is this that a company can pull such a stunt and the public just allows it? To rerelease a product such as this, after trillions of customers have no doubt complained about this horrific act of violence against it's own customer base. Millions of people, billions of people, trillions of people, whatever comes after that. We've all asked: "where are the boots?" collectively as a people. One people of Earth. There are one-hundred some odd people that don't want the boots and they have the power to stop this. Those people are Nintendo, and they've chosen to doom us all.
-800,000,000,000/10
Dr. Luigi (Wii U, 2013)
What a weird one. Mario & Viruses have once again been thrown out on their asses and replaced with inferior replacements. This time though, it’s everyone involved. The plot is a doozy. You play as Greg Wrack, a rookie fire fighter with a penchant for catcalling women. Throughout the game, various PSA-esque scenarios occur, and in the end, Greg learns that objectifying women is wrong. Seeing this, Luigi is inspired to become a doctor, and then the game's events unfold as depicted within. The game commits all of the mortal sins. Adding new features, reasonable pricing, lack of Blue Guy. The only good thing about it are the parts with Greg Wrack. The twist at the very end of the game where it turns out he’s got tourettes and is simply screaming his own name really moved me.
0/10
Dr. Mario Miracle Cure (Nintendo 3DS, 2015)
2015 was a disastrous year for Nintendo. There is nowhere where that is more pronounced than Dr. Mario Whatever the Fuck on 3DS. First of all, where’s Blue Guy? He’s nowhere to be found during gameplay. He should have had the entire bottom screen to himself. Instead, he’s become a number Finally, and more vicious is the fact that Dr. Luigi returned. What is this shit? Why allow him to return? He was the worst part of Dr. Luigi, so you bring him back? Perhaps we should be more forgiving. Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps Miracle Cure isn’t so bad. Maybe I just need to sit back and watch the world around me for a moment. What kind of world has it become? A world where Dr. Luigi, or ever Luigi in general is acceptable? Was I born to suffer? Is that all life is? The pursuit of temporary comfort from constant suffering? Why even travel back in time and prevent myself from playing Dr. Mario Online RX if I was just gonna come to the conclusions I’ve come to now? There’s nothing I, you, or anyone else can do. After this, it was some crappy mobile spin off that doesn’t count and some Switch rereleases. There’s nothing left. All I can do now is look down at my loafers and question everything.The dream is over, and I am the living dead.
6/10
Dr. Mario World (Android/IOS, 2019)
Nintendo put roughly the same effort into making Dr. Mario playable on mobile as I did finding this screenshot. That's of course, what I'd say if I'd actually played this game. I'm fairly sure I'm right though. There's no way to know because nobody can play it anymore.
Unrated
Nintendo Classics: Dr. Mario (Nintendo Switch, 2018)
Nintendo rectifies one horrific sin and goes hard on another in this rerelease of the NES version. The good thing is that if you play your cards right, this can cost your $3.99/mo to play. The bad news, it's bundled with literally hundreds of other games. If Nintendo were to eliminate the other games, and raise the subscription fee, this'd get a better score. The inclusion of other Dr. Mario games with this Dr. Mario game could also cause confusion, further reducing the score.
3/10
Nintendo Classics: Dr. Mario (Nintendo Switch, 2018)
This second re-release of Dr. Mario for Game Boy STILL DOESN'T give Mario his boots. Not only that,but now you can choose colors other than "Monochrome" in the settings. Now, we have definitive proof that Blue Guy isn't blue here. This port has caused so much damage to the series. An open letter to Nintendo that I am currently drafting about this very subject makes it clear that I am wholeheartedly against the rerelease of this game, and demands it's removal from the service. I don't think they'll listen, but I hope they at least consider my point about adding a Paypal Donate button to their website.
-800,000,000,000,000,/10
Nintendo Classics: Dr. Mario 64 (Nintendo Switch, 2018)
When you consider the fact that Dr. Mario 64 has so many modes, that it's now playable online, and it's graphics have aged gracefully compared to most N64 games, and it's a game you pay a subscription to play, you'd think I'd consider this the ultimate version of the game. Too bad they didn't simply implement these modes into a ROM hack of the NES game.
2/10
Nintendo Classics: WarioWare inc. Mega Microgames (Nintendo Switch, 2023)
Nintendo hides Dr. Mario in a collections of games which itself is contained within a collection of games. As of now, this is the final release in the Dr. Mario series. It's truly unfortunate. I wish I could tell you more about another glorious rerelease of Dr. Mario for NES, but sadly we end on this unglorious rerelease of Dr. Mario for NES.
7/10
Indeed, Dr. Mario is the greatest video game of all time. You can play it anywhere while doing anything. Watching your wife give birth? Great! The hospital is a perfect setting to play Dr. Mario in. Do not heed the warnings of the hospital staff while you hook up your NES to the monitoring equipment. It's not like that shit's doing anything important anyway. When I become president, Dr. Mario will be mandatory in some invasive way I won't explain. It's just that good, and it's a crime that more people don't play it. Nintendo has been cramming it down peoples throats like so many pills these last few years. Maybe it's time for a new game in the series that doesn't look like it's made of plastic and self loathing? Who knows!? I welcome any rerelease with open arms. There are only four version of Dr. Mario on Switch 2 right now, and it's been out for 6 months. We need more, many, many more. immediately.