It’s the Best Version of Dr. Mario out There Right Now
The gameplay loop of Dr. Mario has always revolved around dropping different colored pills and matching them up with viruses to eradicate them. Fast forward 30 years later and Dr. Mario World essentially uses a similar formula for this touchscreen-based mobile title.
But instead of dropping pills down a la Tetris style, you’re sliding pills from the bottom of the screen upwards to match them up with the viruses. You have to match three of them instead of the traditional four and thanks to the touchscreen play, you have more control over where the pills go.
You can now drag and drop extra segments of the pill to whatever place you choose which helps a lot when you need that one extra pill to make a match somewhere on the stage.
The majority of the levels aren’t timed either. The game won’t stress you out like other timed puzzle games such as Tetris. You have as much time as you need to think about where to place pills with a specific number of them at your disposal.
There are some stages that are timed, but those are very difficult special challenges that you come across after the intro section of the game, which don’t have to be completed for you to progress in the “story.”
What I’m trying to get at is that this iteration of the 90s puzzle game is honestly the best and the most accessible way to get into Dr. Mario.
You can play the 1990 version by way of the NES collection on Switch or you could check out Dr. Luigi on the Wii U, but let’s be honest –most people don’t have their Wii U plugged in right now and Dr. Mario on the NES is very dated.
Also, everybody has a smartphone and the game is free, so there’s no reason to not download it.
