3/5 ★ – jdraco's review of Dr. Mario.

Dr. Mario is a game that will get you addicted to pills in real life More specifically addicted to Adderall, or any ADHD medication for that matter, because you’re going to need to be focused when you play this game And the reason for that is because damn near every single level takes so unbelievably long to beat Let me break down why, though So Dr. Mario is a puzzle game, and it’s kind of like Tetris in the fact that you have to line up 4 of the same colored object (pills) either horizontally or vertically in order to clear them out But in this game, you’re not trying to just clear out the pills; you’re trying to kill a virus More specifically, these little blue, red, and yellow virus creatures, which are all randomly placed around the board for you to clear out Every level spawns more of them, and every level gets faster as the game progresses And I hope I just did a decent job explaining the game there; honestly, honestly though I shouldn’t even really have to explain it, because it’s Dr. Mario; everyone knows this fucking game But I digress So now the bullshit comes in with the fact that by clearing away a virus, you always end up blocking yourself from getting another one Because the pills that you’re randomly given can be either blue, yellow, red, blue and red, blue and yellow, or red and yellow Now, the ones that are the pure colors are great; when you get those ones, it’s smooth sailing But then when you get the pills that are comprised of 2 different colors, then you run into bullshit Because let's say you want to clear out a blue virus and you get a pill that's blue and yellow You would naturally put the blue side of the pill on the virus so you could try to line up 4 blues to clear it out But then when you do this, that yellow part of the pill is just dangling in the wind, so now when you eventually clear out the blues, that yellow then drops down until it hits either the bottom of the screen or onto another virus And 99% of the time (it feels like), it lands on a different colored virus, and this is where the levels start to take ages to complete Because every time you clear out a virus, you always end up blocking another one, and it just goes on and on and on And then you try to go for a virus that’s blocked off by clearing out the pills on top of it, and you just end up blocking another virus These moments are what I like to call “The Dr. Mario Loop” Because you will just get stuck for what feels like eternity on these moments of, again, just trying to get to a virus that's blocked off, only to block off another virus, but then when you go to get that one, you block off another virus, and, again, it just goes on and on and on and on And I think the worst part about it is that it doesn’t even really feel satisfying when you finally do clear out a virus; it’s just a genuine relief But then that relief is usually immediately trampled by the fact that you now have to clear out another virus that’s underneath 7 different colored pills It's fucked up Now, with all that being said though, I actually do still kind of like this game It’s very addicting to me for some reason, and I’m not even entirely sure why Maybe it’s that high that I get from finally beating a level in this game that I’m constantly chasing and trying to relive Or maybe it’s that slight satisfaction that I get when every once in a blue moon I actually do line it up so the correct colored pill drops down onto the same colored virus I don’t know though Dr. Mario is just a weird game It’s a game that's highly addictive; it demands your focus; it makes you think; it makes you struggle; it makes you hate yourself But yet, it makes you feel slightly accomplished at the same time as well So I guess all that’s left for me to say, to sum up this review Is that I’m addicted to Adderall now 3/5