Two awesome puzzle games in one 30 dollar package, but the trip to GBA has left them a bit worse for wear.
DR. MARIO
Gameplay - Gravity is your enemy.
Hopefully you know the deal behind Dr. Mario, and even if you don't it is typical puzzle game fare. Just like in Puyo Puyo or Tetris, something is falling from the sky, and you - yes, YOU - must place it wherever the heck it's supposed to go. In this case, Dr. Mario is hurling vitamins into the top of the bottle, and at that point he calls it a day and just watches to see if you put it in the right place. Stupid lazy doctor.
Modes - Everything you'd expect and one thing you definitely wouldn't.
Dr. Mario comes with several gameplay modes. You've got Classic, the original cure-till-you-drop game. You've got Flash, where you race the CPU to kill the three flashing viruses (they must carry Seizureosis). You've got Vs. CPU, where you focus on killing EVERY virus before the computer does. You've got the option to play Flash and Versus with a human who has their own copy of this game. And you're missing Marathon mode and Time mode for some godforsaken reason. Instead you can unlock "Vertical Mode" which shows a close-up of the bottle that takes up as much space as possible. You hold your handheld on its side and play like that. It's weird. It's also hard to do on an SP or a DS because that top screen gets in the way, and have fun doing it on a Game Boy Player.
Music - Oh, dear lord. Fever, what have they DONE to you?!
The first inkling something is wrong is the title screen. It's a remix of the usual Dr. Mario title screen music, but it grates on the ears. The menu music is wonderfully, amazingly average in every respect. The four gameplay tracks in Dr. Mario are the four from Dr. Mario 64: The classic Fever and Chill and the relative newcomers, Cube and Que Que, which have been rechristened as Cough and Sneeze to better fit the doctor mold. Fully half of Fever is missing, making the music literally unfinished and far too repetitive. Cube is all right until it gets near the end, whereupon your GBA morphs into an NES and cranks up the volume for a barrage of loud, awful-sounding beeps. Chill is mediocre; it was better on the N64. Only Que Que remains fully intact and good to listen to. However, it'll probably become repetitive listening to it over and over. After a few hours of what Dr. Mario calls "music", I gave up, muted it, and moved my headphones from the DS to the boombox, whereupon Aerosmith drowned Dr. Mario out.
Sound - All your favorite beeps!
Where the music stumbles, falls into a bottomless pit, and is impaled on an overly large spike, the sound remains intact from the N64 Dr. Mario nicely. The only thing missing is the little cries the viruses make when the vitamins burn their plague-causing, color-coded skin like acid. At least that awesome hissing sond is still here. Take THAT, Blue Virus! Not so jolly NOW, are we?
Story - Story? We don't need no stinkin' story.
There is no story mode, but I liked Dr. Mario 64's story mode because of the high scores and time-wasting potential involved, not because it was a fascinating narrative of intrigue, mystery, suspense, and sweet, delicious romance.
Presentation - Gee, Dr. Mario, where'd all your little friends go?
The menus closely resemble Dr. Mario 64's, except... that cute little duffer Paragoom is nowhere to be seen, which brings me to my main beef with the presentation: the characters have all been removed except for Dr. Mario, and he only appears in Classic mode. No Webber, no Wario, no Lump, no HammerBot... Boo, Intelligent Design, BOO I say!
PUZZLE LEAGUE
Gameplay - It's a Zen thing, man.
In a startling revelation, the blocks in Puzzle League come from the BOTTOM of the screen and go UPWARD. This sorta stuff revolutionized to puzzle game industry a dozen years ago. Swap the places of two blocks using the cursor. When 3 or more of the same color touch, they disappear. As usual, don't let your puzzle pieces reach the top or you lose and are shamed by your family.
Modes - All your favorite modes! Except that one.
While Puzzle League contains fully twice as many modes as Dr. Mario (including that weird Vertical Mode thingy), it's missing two of the most fun modes from Pokemon Puzzle League: Puzzle mode's Create-a-Puzzle mode, and the 3D option, which was a blast to play. 3D mode was not graphics-intensive and probably would have survived on the GBA just fine, and leaving out Create-A-Puzzle has no excuse whatsoever.
Music - Tastes like vanilla!
The music isn't awful, per se... just disappointingly bland. Like Dr. Mario, only one track (the third one in Options) held my interest for longer than one game, and I'm about ready to start playing this one with the sound off and the boombox on, as well.
Sound - How... generic.
The sound can get on your nerves after a while. The blocks falling a popping is fine, but the clicks and clacks from the menu selection grated on me quickly. Why does this game hate noise so much? Maybe Dr. Mario/Puzzle League's sound was remixed by deaf people.
Story - There is no story. There is no spoon. There is no Matrix. You didn't see anything.
Again, it's a puzzle game. Let's move on, shall we?
Presentation - *tumbleweed*
The original Tetris Attack had Yoshi. Pokemon Puzzle League had the lovable, huggable, squishable Pokemon. The Japanese versions have... whatever they're called when the game is named Panel de Pon, and Puzzle League gets... absolutely nothin'. There's a little bouncing star that acts as your menu cursor, and you can go into Options and put a hamster with a leaf on its head on your screen while you play, but... no recognizable faces here, which leaves the game feeling more faceless than PictoChat. Dr. Mario at least retained a LITTLE of its original personality. Here? Nothing.
Pros:
- Both games remain fun and addictive
- High scores are saved
- It's portable
- Two games on one cart means more bang for your buck
Cons:
- Dr. Mario's music has seen better days
- Puzzle League is unexcusably bland in presentation
- Dr. Mario's Story mode, Marathon mode, and Time Attack mode, and Puzzle League's 3D mode and Create-A-Puzzle mode are sorely missed
BUY OR RENT?
If you have Dr. Mario 64 and Pokemon Puzzle League, don't even rent this. If you're a puzzle fanatic, pick it up posthaste. If you're only mildly interested, a rent is in order.
CONCLUSION
Dr. Mario/Puzzle League, despite the sound butchering and lack of characters and modes, is still a complete and addictive package that will satisfy puzzle fans who can't get their hands on the N64 versions of these two titles.