(Interestingly enough, I don't own either of these games. My roommate does however, so I borrowed them for this review.)Let’s talk about a classic; Dr. Mario for the NES. I’m more then certain that everyone has heard of this game before, and if you haven’t *deep effect* SHAME! It’s been ported directly onto a few consoles, been put on a couple compilation games and has had a remake or two. Heck, Dr. Mario was even a fighter in Super Smash Bros. Melee. And here’s why you should know about this game if you don’t.
Dr. Mario is a puzzle game, but probably the best puzzle game of all time. You play as Mario who, for no reason other than Nintendo told him to, became a doctor. He’s developed pills called “Megavitamins” which are composed of two parts of three possible colors (red, blue or yellow). He throws these pills in a giant bottle with static viruses of the same color inside. All you have to do is match 4 of the same color sections in a straight line (either horizontally or vertically) by rotating the vitamins 90 degrees and moving them left and right. But don’t forget, you’re megavitamins fall downwards and if you they clog up the entrance point, you lose, so act carefully, but quickly.
The graphics and coloring in this game are amazing for the NES. Dr. Mario came out in 1990, which was pretty late in the NES’ life, meaning the graphics were pretty much reaching its full potential. In this game, you got a nice vibrant variety of colors and well detailed objects. This is especially good for puzzle games, since you’ll most likely be staring at similar objects for addicted hours on end. The music in this game is some of the most recognizable ones in the world of video games. There’s of course “Fever” (which is often mistakenly just called “Dr.Mario”), one of the most popular scores from the game, but I personally enjoy every song heard in it. Even the menu songs are great! It’s amazing to see and hear that they put this much quality into the game.
And… that’s all I really have to say about Dr.Mario. So, how about now I talk about another puzzle game staring a Mario character on the NES? If you don’t what I’m talking about, I’m talking about Yoshi, and this time, I won’t hold it against you.
Yoshi works in a similar “blocks dropping down” where if the objects reach the top, you lose styled puzzle game which became popular after tetris. However in this game, you don’t control the blocks falling, you controls the ones they land on. The playing field is composed of 4 columns, and you can switch two at a time. If you can make a block land on a matching one, it disappears. But what does Yoshi himself bring to this game? Eggs. They drop down as halfs, bottoms and tops. If a top lands with no bottom underneath, it disappears and nothing happens. But, if a bottom landed and a top lands above it, they will close together, taking away all blocks in between them. Unlike Dr.Mario, this game has two modes of play, one “endless” style, where the blocks just keep coming, and another mode where you start with blocks already and you just have to make them all go away.
This game has a few weaknesses that make it far from the puzzle greatness of Dr.Mario. First off, it’s too easy and too basic. Sure in puzzle game it’s expected that things will get repetitive, but this one feels like it was made for younger kids. The next problem is the graphics. This game looks as if they took the Super Mario World sprites and downgraded them for the NES, and just made things look weird. Far from the great looking wonder of Dr.Mario.
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