What am I supposed to say about Dr. Mario? I'm getting to that point in the "backlogging" process where I'm getting to the classic era games (late 80s early 90s type fare) where the games are often so basic conceptually - mostly out of necessity - that there usually isn't even a point in reviewing them. But, here I am. I dedicated myself to a 1:1 rating to review format and here we are.

Gameplay-wise, Dr. Mario is fun if a bit obtuse. Maybe it's just because I was a really stupid kid when I first played this, but I just could not figure out the mechanics of the game. But once you do, it's a pretty by-the-numbers tile matching game and is fun on the principle of that alone.

Whose idea was a "Dr. Mario" anyways? I''m really curious to get my hands on a time machine and go to the meeting where "Dr. Mario" was first propositioned as a concept. Nintendo wasn't shy about starting new IPs around this time, so it's weird that they'd tack Mario onto this game. Probably the most egregious Mario cameo to date at the time was when he was the referee in Punch-Out but there were original characters in that as well.

Looking around the origins of Dr. Mario, I found a prototype of the game called "Virus", instead of the viruses under a magnifying glass there was a picture of a dog you're trying to cure of the viruses, alongside a few other cosmetic changes. But lo and behold, Mario was still the doctor! What was the point of having Mario in it with no other notable characters and not calling it a Mario game? Was Mario a placeholder? Was this a Doki-Doki Panic situation where Dr. Mario was hurriedly adapted from some other virus-curing pill-throwing tile-matching doctor game? The world may never know...