Dr. Mario (NES) Playthrough

A playthough of Nintendo's 1990 puzzle game for the NES, Dr. Mario.

In this video, I play through the game on high speed for the best ending. The game begins at 2:10, and at 1:07:08, you can find a compilation of the cutscenes and endings that are shown when you play on the low and medium speeds.

Though he made a cameo appearance in the 1989 Game Boy version of Tetris, it was the fall 1990 release of Dr. Mario that gave Mario his first starring role in a puzzle game.

Dr. Mario was a huge deal when it came out. The vast sums Nintendo poured into its marketing campaign turned it into a pop culture phenomenon (remember the witch doctor commercial?), and any game starring Mario was guaranteed to be a best-seller. Looking back, it's strange remembering how there was once a time when puzzle games could become rockstars, but numbers don't lie: between the NES and the Game Boy, Dr. Mario sold over ten million copies worldwide.

The game keeps things simple - it is essentially a mash-up of Tetris and Connect Four with a slick bit of theming - but like the best puzzlers, there is a fair amount of depth to Dr. Mario's gameplay. It follows the same design ethos that Tetris did: it's simple to pick up, impossible to master, and entirely addictive, regardless of your skill level.

I love the little cinematic scenes that play after every fifth level (but are these guys really viruses? They're more like aliens...), and especially for a puzzle game, the graphics are great. The pieces are all clear and easily identified at a glance, and the dancing of the viruses and Dr. Mario brings a lot of life to the presentation.

The music is also classic. It speaks volumes to its quality that Nintendo is still remixing and recycling these tracks in modern releases. You can't go wrong with either of the in-game choices, "Fever" or "Chill," and that lengthy title theme makes me think of catchy pop songs from the 50s or 60s. Of course, with a [h]ip composer like Tanaka (Metroid, Kid Icarus, Super Mario Land, Mother, et al) at the helm, you would expect greatness, and he totally delivered.

Dr. Mario is awesome. It's a game that represents everything people loved about NES-era Nintendo, and the gameplay is timeless.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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