Collection essentials #53: Dr. Mario (NES)

Dr. Mario is our first “falling blocks puzzle game” on the list. There’s a certain super-famous game that starts with the letter T which popularized the genre that I haven’t gotten to yet, so due to the nature of the alphabet we’ll have to wait for that one.

In a “falling blocks puzzle game”, you have to arrange blocks or objects in a certain way that will cause them to disappear. If you fail to make them disappear, eventually the stack of blocks or objects will reach the top of the screen and you will lose. They tend to deliver gameplay that is easy to grasp and play, but challenging to master and fun to play with a friend. 

In Dr. Mario, the game starts out with a series of viruses already in play which need to be eliminated. You can customize how many of them you want to deal with, so it’s easy for either a beginner or expert to jump right in with whatever’s just right for them. The viruses come in three colors: red, blue and yellow. Dr. Mario throws two-sided pills that also come in red, blue and yellow. Once there is a row or column of at least four viruses and/or pills of the same color, the entire row or column will disappear. Because each pill has two colors, it can be tricky to place them properly without making your job suddenly a lot harder because you buried a virus that will suddenly be very hard to remove. This is also a very good two-player game, as two friends can go head-to-head to see who can clear their viruses faster, and players who clear more than four pieces in one move will send unwanted blocks to the other player’s screen which can mess up their plans! The gameplay is very addictive and I never seem to get tired of it! Dr. Mario also features two catchy songs that are instantly recognizable to anyone who has played the game and are a delightful part of the fun.

I do hesitate to call it one of the best puzzle games of its kind, because it can be a little overly frustrating. You will usually have to clear viruses vertically and only occasionally be able to clear them horizontally, and that means if by accident or necessity you cover up a virus at the top of a stack with a pill of a different color, suddenly it can be a huge effort to undo the mess, ESPECIALLY if the virus in question is near the top of the screen. One unfortunate move can completely ruin you. And sometimes you just get really unlucky, as you can’t control what color pills Mario throws at you.

I didn’t have an NES as a young kid, but I knew people who had this game so I did get to play it every now and then. In particular, my Uncle Job (who is not normally a gamer) and his kids really loved Dr. Mario. Any time in the future if I have any of them over I’ll probably offer to play it with them.

The copy of the game you see in the photo, box and all, is the longest-owned NES game of mine in the collection. It actually predates when I got my own NES console. When I was roughly 11 or 12, my late grandmother was giving out stuff to our family (I don’t remember the circumstances to explain why) and literally just handed me this game as a random gift. I knew I wanted to get an NES, so I held onto it, and it remains in my collection to this day! An essential of both nostalgia and quality.