Dr. Mario is a puzzle game released for the Gameboy and NES in the fall of 1990. I never played this game as a kid. I didn't start playing it until I played it on Vizzed about 2 years ago. I don't find anything about it I like! I guess it's fun for people who grew up with it, but I think I wouldn't have liked it back then either. For me, it becomes so long and boring of a game. I had mixed to negative feelings about Tetris, but with Dr. Mario, I really found myself liking this game less and less with every playthrough. The music is so repetitive, and it has very little content to it unless you want to continue on with it after beating level 5. Some players may want to keep at it, but I have better things to do!  

Graphics 5/10: Dr. Mario is a lot like the NES version of Tetris whenever it comes to the graphics. Like with that game, there isn't a whole lot of variety to it. For Dr. Mario, there are probably even fewer cutscenes where the game looks decent. Most of the time, you're just looking at the same boring background of the playing field with viruses and all. This is a game that does very little to catch my attention with the graphics. The sprites don't look bad, but you just have the same characters and sprites throughout the whole game! I get tired of looking at them and just want to move on! This isn't a bad looking game, but like with everything else, there is no variety!!

Music 1/10: Dr. Mario also has a very weak soundtrack. I know I sound like a broken record, but this game bores me to death with its music. The songs sound good at best, but you only get two songs for the whole game! There are only two music types to choose from. In some ways, the songs don't even sound that great either. They're not that catchy whenever you just keep hearing them over and over again. This part of the game is probably one of the weakest parts of it. If you're trying to make a song list of Dr. Mario, you won't have to spend much time on it!!  

Gameplay 0/10: When the game starts, you have a playing field that is infested with viruses of different colors: red, yellow, and blue. Mario throws pills of the same colors into the playing area to kill the viruses. In order to kill the viruses, you have to match up the color of the pills with the color of the viruses. When you do this, you eliminate the viruses. The object is similar to the B-type game in Tetris, you have to clear the playing field in order to progress to the next level.

Once you clear a level, the screen is infected with more viruses, and the number keeps growing each time you beat a level. After completing level 5, you have beaten the game, and you get a cut scene with all the viruses looking up into the sky. However, upon doing this you can continue to play the game as long as you want. So, there are also no Game Overs with Dr. Mario. If the pills reach the top of the screen, you can restart the level you are currently playing and try again until you beat it. However sometimes, these levels can take a long time to complete, and that's where the boredom starts to really set in for me. I just keep playing and re-playing these same stages for what feels like an eternity!!

The player can also start the game on 3 different speeds: low, medium, and high, but I just want to end it after level 5 on normal difficulty. I have kept going at times, but I got bored with the game very fast. One time I played the game on all 3 speeds, and I just kept playing the same levels for hours! Low difficulty offered no challenge at all! And that's the main reason I don't like Dr. Mario! It's way too easy! Tetris had its share of issues, but at least it was challenging in a way that made you want to keep playing it. There just seemed to be no purpose to keep playing except for trying to see how far you can get, but that takes forever!! I don't have the time or the patience to sit down and grind away on these long, uninteresting stages!! Enough said.  

Content 1/10: I don't feel like there is much to Dr. Mario that is all that interesting to play. You have 5 levels in normal speed, and that's all there is to it. Anything other than that just drags on too much for me. Even these stages feel longer than what they should because of the way the game won't give you the right color pills when you need them. When this happens, it just takes longer to clear the playing area and progress to the next level. That's the main reason I don't have much interest in playing anything more than these 5 stages in normal mode. Just like with everything else, Dr. Mario is very lacking in any kind of decent content.

Difficulty 0/10: Dr. Mario is an example of a game that is too easy. The objective is to get as far as you can I guess, but that doesn't feel like much of an objective. It's pretty easy to do this because of how there are no Game Overs. Players can just keep playing the same levels again and again until they beat them. This can take forever and makes for some of the most boring and dull gameplay I have ever seen! When you take the challenge out of a game, you take out the fun. Tetris was hard, but that was kind of what made you want to keep playing. At times, that game was not very balanced with its difficulty, but with Dr. Mario you have a game that is way too unbalanced in a different way to a point that becomes very flat!

Overall 1.8/10: Dr. Mario is a game I could recommend to people, but I didn't like it at all! If you're into long puzzle games that will keep you busy for hours, you'll love it. That's also true for players (unlike me) who have a lot of time on their hands. I hate this game because of how boring/tedious these levels are to clear. Whenever I played all the stages, I played this game for hours! This is my least favorite puzzle games and probably one of my least favorite video games of all time. I never played it as a kid, and I'm glad I didn't! I might have had problems with Tetris, but at least I was interested in it enough to want to continue playing. For me, Dr. Mario is not worth the time or the effort!!