Review: Dr. Mario World
For those of you that haven’t heard, Nintendo recently dropped Dr. Mario World for mobile devices. Dr. Mario for the original NES was one of those games that was so much fun yet so challenging at the higher levels (a tip of the hat to you if you can beat level 24). It isn’t beyond me from time to time to hook up the old system and play a few rounds so as anyone could imagine, the news of the new Dr. Mario World for the mobile devices was like gift from heaven. That being said, the game was not what I expected.
Right off the bat, the differences are pretty obvious. Instead of Mario standing above the glass jar throwing pill capsules in, the jar is flipped upside down and the pill capsules float upwards. There is also a slight difference in the amount of matching colors needed to knock out a virus. In the old NES version, 4 identical colors were needed whereas in Dr. Mario World only 3 are required. There are 2 main types of characters, “Doctors” and “Assistants.” Each “Doctor” has a special skill that can be used during each stage by filling up a skill meter. Dr. Mario (level 1), for example, clears the row in the lowest position. Depending on the mode you’re playing, “Assistants” on the other hand offer more passive skills. Goomba (level 1), for example, increases your score by 1% in the main campaign. In versus mode, Goomba grants an 8% chance that your Doctor’s attack meter will fill instantly after taking a hit. You are able to choose 2 “Assistants” for each stage or versus match. So far, there are 10 “Doctors” and 32 “Assistants” that (other than Dr. Mario) can be unlocked.
Starting out I found myself playing this basic little puzzler that didn’t seem to offer too much. Nostalgically speaking, the music and appearances were enough to keep me going when I thought the game had little to no complexity. Each level begins with a number of viruses and you have a limited amount of pill capsules to knock them all out. As you progress throughout the different worlds you start to come across other variations of levels. Later stages begin to offer newer obstacles that throw an extra demand for attention. Sometimes you’re finding hidden coins behind blocks, sometimes you’re unlocking cages to free viruses you’re inevitable knocking out. Occasionally, there are stages tasking you with the objective of knocking out all the viruses within a time limit. You have an unlimited amount of capsules which may seem like no sweat but have proven to be a pretty daunting task.
After the playing the main campaign for a little while, I decided it was time to try my skills in the versus mode. This proved to offer an awesome challenge that was just what I was looking for! Within just a few minutes I found myself playing round after round going head to head with players from all over the world. In versus mode, both players start out with the same arrangement of viruses and face an endless onslaught of new ones as the play field shrinks smaller and smaller. Each round last roughly 30 seconds to about a minute and a half depending on how fierce the competition is. The way the ranking system is set up in this game in a way that only adds to my gaming addiction. Every time you win a round, you are awarded roughly 30 or so trophies. Subsequently, losing the round results in a loss of roughly 20 trophies. As mentioned earlier, each assistant offers a passive skill you can take into the match. These passive skills offer a wide variety of different strategies that can be used to make your way up through the ranks.
All in all, Dr. Mario World has taken me a bit by surprise from when I first picked it up to play. Now I find myself falling victim to the, “just one more really quick round before bed” excuse. My suggestion is to do yourself a favor and go on the app store and download this game ASAP! you won’t regret it especially since the game is free so you have nothing to lose! By the way, so far at this point I have 1,250 trophies in the versus mode, think you can beat that!?
~Greg Silvers - Xbox Gamertag: EventualCoast8 / PSN: Zero3511
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