Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure Review

A week before E3 there was a mini Nintendo Direct with a few smaller game reveals Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure was one of those games. I had known about it previously as there was a Japanese equivalent previously. I reckon if they didn’t do that and done that presentation as part of E3 then the E3 wouldn’t have been seen as being so bad, but that is another article.

Seriously though, about Dr. Mario, it is a horse Nintendo like to beat from time to time for sure, the old Dr. Mario formula has been used regularly since nineteen ninety spanning across five platforms in it’s different games (even appearing in a WarioWare game as a bonus game.) Dr. Mario is just Mario with a Doctor’s costume on and the game is just a drop down matching puzzle game, Nintendo’s answer to Tetris I would guess, but has is retained it’s charm while remaining different enough to stay worthwhile for the price point?

Let’s just get it out the way, I love Tetris and Dr. Mario, I reckon they are some of the best puzzle games in the history of gaming. The amount of time I put into the both of them I wouldn’t like to add up, in my youth especially. My brother got a Gameboy for Christmas with Tetris packaged into, ( I got a Sega Gamegear, (which I still have), yes we were lucky boys!) it was a large part of why I got into gaming. I remember playing well at it being on level ten with speed ten, not bad for a ten-year old! Doctor Mario was a similar addiction for me when I discovered it.

Basically Dr. Mario throws pills (split into two colours) in to a space with red, blue and yellow bacteria are and you control the pills to land on the bacteria and when you make four in a row, they die off and the line disappears. At the time, Nintendo had matched Tetris and put their spin on it and it was just as good to me. So how about now, how are the new editions, is there enough different. The previous one was Dr. Luigi, which I never got, but the pills came out as L shapes, the graphics were fancy and there was multiplayer but that was all, but it was also fourteen pounds, very expensive.

In comparison to that, Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure is eight pounds ninety-nine pence and has quite a bit more to be talked about. The Miracle Cure part of the name is a major development, in this version you can get special powers as you go along with the game, clear a line vertically or horizontally, clear a colour of bacteria that sort of thing, which is quite a good help. In turn the challenge of the game has been ramped up; the hard levels are even harder than before. Dr. Luigi makes and appearance and his dropping pills come as L shapes again, you can also go up against him as a computer controlled player. In that mode you can send bad things over to your enemy like reverse controls and such to mess with them, this works as an online and local multiplayer too (if both people have the game though).

The graphics are nice and simple, just what you need, the music is familiar to any Dr. Mario fan; it is all quite a nice little package. This was my holiday game this year and it was played well and truly whenever I could. My addiction from my youth was reignited and it was very satisfying, it even got me over Nintendo’s E3 presentation! All in all, it is a quality Nintendo game from the back catalogue brought into the new generation. I would recommend this one to anyone, but then again I am a fan, it may not be some people’s taste, but it is the best puzzle game on 3DS by far and I will be playing it for quite some time! I am even getting a Dr. Mario Amiibo as soon as I can (for my birthday maybe!) to celebrate my love for this game!

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Nintendo 3DS code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.