Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure (3DS)

"Some of the old, a bit of the new"

If you are old enough to have owned one of the old monochrome Nintendo Game Boys, you've more than likely played the classic Dr. Mario or one of the more recent titles in the series. If you have, Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure for the 3DS will not disappoint. The gameplay is exactly like its classic predecessor: drop two-toned colored pills, line up a pattern of four, and destroy all the viruses to win. If you liked puzzle games like Tetris, Pokémon Puzzle League, or Puzzle and Dragons, you'll find this game to be right up your alley.

Popping Pills

There's really no storyline to speak of in Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure. You drop pills to pop viruses. What the pills are made of, who are you trying to cure, and how Mario and Luigi came to be certified plumbers and doctors...we might never know.

The basic gameplay mechanics are pretty straight forward. Dr. Mario tosses pills consisting of two colored halves into what appears to be a bottle, where they begin falling towards colored "viruses". If you line up four pill halves of the same color, or three with a virus of the same color, the row will clear and the virus will be removed. The Luigi version is very similar, except instead of just a single two-segmented colored pill being dropped, you get two pills arranged in the shape of an "L." You can rotate the pills and move them as you see fit (think Tetris).

All in all, pretty basic and enjoyable. They could have used a few mor einnovative elements, though. Maybe more power-ups, or maybe even another color set of viruses/pills to increase the chaos.

Then Comes the Power-ups

This is the feature that made this game much more enjoyable to me. The power-ups add a layer of strategy that I feel the original could have benefited from. From destroying all of the same colored viruses in one blow or clearing an entire row, the power ups add a fun twist to the game.

Versus Play

Like any good 3DS game, you can go at it alone or play against opponents. I actually enjoyed the versus play more than I thought I would. Typically, with puzzle games, versus play is pretty straightforward and sometimes even dull. In this new version of Dr. Mario, there are many different dimensions that make playing with friends or against the computer more fun and challenging. Not being able to rotate your pills or having your controls reversed is devastating when it happens to you, but there is sweet satisfaction when you know you've ruined your opponent's game.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics in Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure are pretty sound, but nothing spectacular. The only 3D models are of Dr. Mario and Dr. Luigi lobbing pills into the playing area. The pills, viruses, and power-ups are all in 2D, and they aren't overly impressive. After all, it's just a puzzle game, and the graphics reflect this.

The music, on the other hand, is great. You get a bit of a retro Dr. Mario background music as well as some newer compositions. A game that is already addictive by nature really needs a catchy theme song, and that is exactly what you get. Any time you think of playing Tetris, that familiar song plays in your head, and Dr. Mario's music will also be ringing in your ears as you drop what feels like an endless amount of pills. Luigi also gets his own tunes when you play in his mode, which is a little detail that I really enjoyed.