Dr. Mario World is fun, but imperfect

With all the charm of Mushroom Kingdom and its fast gameplay, it is not surprising that Nintendo has chosen the Dr. Mario series as the next big mobile offering. Like Mario Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Doctor Mario World is a free game that does its best to get you addicted before presenting your monetized game currency and time-locked progress system. Although it's a fun little puzzle, Dr. Mario World suffers from aggravating free gaming barriers and sometimes a huge amount of game variables.

At first glance, Dr. Mario's longtime fans will notice a major problem with Dr. Mario World: he has nothing of the fast gameplay of the original series. Instead of rearranging the colored capsules as they fall from the top of the screen, you should select them at the bottom of the screen, letting them float slowly upward or placing them directly in the screen. best position to eliminate a group of viruses.

The elimination of viruses is still the name of the game, but the simplicity and increasing urgency of Dr. Mario's origin have long since disappeared. There is no timer to find – just a limited number of capsules to solve the puzzle. In this way, Dr. Mario World is more interested in strategy than reaction. It almost looks like a completely different style of puzzle game that Dr. Mario's painting has been applied to (though it's not necessarily a bad thing).

The biggest problem facing Dr. Mario World, however, is not his redrawn puzzles. Like many mobile puzzle games, Dr. Mario World presents each of his puzzles as a single step on a large map of the universe. However, to access each step, you must offer one of your hearts (or "lives"), which can only be restored by buying more or waiting about half an hour to gain one. . Although that does not make it unplayable, it certainly indicates very clearly from the very beginning the priorities of this Dr. Mario.

Throughout the steps, Dr. Toad, adorable and helpful, appears to give you tips and explain how to use new items and bonuses. It's cute at first, but even before completing the 20 steps of the tutorial, it becomes obvious that too many useless factors are involved in solving these seemingly simple puzzles. There are items that can be activated before the start of the scene, a different set of items that players can use during the scene, as well as various special enhancements that can be made by both the doctor and the assistant characters for real money, of course). That's a lot to follow, especially for a Dr. Mario game.

The puzzles of Dr. Mario World also add new elements to each stage, viruses being hidden behind bricks, frozen in the ice and blocked behind barriers. Along with these new challenges come even more articles, these placed in the puzzle itself. By simply placing a capsule, you can send shells on the fly and detonate bombs to eliminate larger groups of viruses. These variations are a welcome change as you go along, even if they add to the overall madness of each puzzle.

With regard to Dr. Mario World's Versus mode, his complex puzzles have been replaced by a simple clutter of viruses. This mode is much more in line with the classic Dr. Mario, opposing another player in a race to eliminate as many viruses as possible as quickly as possible. This does not immediately lead to victory, but sends a swarm of new viruses to your opponent. The frenetic and classic nature of this fashion ended up being my favorite part of the Dr. Mario experience. Even if my opponent ended up breaking me at the end, I took advantage of almost all my hectic matches.

The riddles of the main game are well designed and the versus mode offers a fun competitive aspect. Completing a complicated stage or winning an online battle is a satisfying experience, making Dr. Mario World's free game model even more unfortunate. One has the impression that everything stops just the moment you invest yourself, but I guess that's the goal, right? You can collect coins to pay for some items and more play time, but Dr. Mario does his best to redirect you to the store where you can spend real money to get some diamonds back into play.

Even when you enter the "Personal" section of Dr. Mario World (which allows you to recruit new doctors and assistants) with enough coins or diamonds to recruit a new ally, it does not allow you to choose the right one. character that suits you best. add to your medical team. The gacha-esque system drops a doctor or assistant randomly on your lap, even allowing you to end up with the same character several times, whether you use real money or not.

Based on what I have played so far, Dr. Mario World gives the impression of giving a decent twist to a series of decades old. It is unfortunate that his efforts to keep things fresh and fun are somewhat overshadowed by his overzealous options and annoying roadblocks based on microtransaction. That said, if you like riddles and claim to have a degree in medicine, Dr. Mario World is not the worst choice.

Ben is an independent writer from Indianapolis. He loves the story of the game and hugs his Donkey Kong arcade machine. He can be found on Twitter @SuperBentendo.