What I'm Playing (Volume 153): Dr. Mario 64

Dr. Mario 64 is a puzzle game released for the N64 in 2001. Developed by Nintendo, it is an enhanced remake of Dr. Mario, one of my all-time favorite NES games (I ranked it 8th on my list of top ten NES games). So, what does this one add, compared to it's classic progenitor?

First, most importantly, and by far best, Dr. Mario 64 uses the native four controller ports on the N64 (a greatly underappreciated feature) to allow four players to play Dr. Mario at once. In a day and age where we can now have 99 players playing Tetris against each other, this could seem pretty underwhelming. But in 2001, the opportunity to play a really good puzzle game with several players is awesome, and we still use this version in my house today. It used to be the case that we'd have entire mornings of playing Dr. Mario on the NES in my house, but with only two players, there's a lot of downtime and controller passing involved. This game allows you to have four at once, which is a really nice feature.

Other than that, it's pretty much just Dr. Mario (nothing wrong with that). There are some new music tracks, new backgrounds for your play field, and characters you can pick from (these are entirely aesthetic). There's a story mode that will be familiar to those of you who have played the story mode in Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, in which you play a series of games against increasingly challenging AI opponents. There's a tiny story here, but for the most part, it simply lets you feel a sense of progression and challenge against tougher opponents, and an endorphin rush when you beat the game. There are a few other ways you can play Dr. Mario as well, but for the most part these are gimmicks that will distract you for a round or two, only to return to the classic action.

The music is really good, featuring arrangements of the songs from the original as well as some original tracks. The arrangements are nice, although you'll probably, like me, end up listening to "Fever" over and over again. You can't really improve on it that much!

The graphics are nice, and are a good adaptation of the classic game. There's some Paper Mario-ish character illustrations of the main characters that will react when you do good plays, win, or lose, but this is, again, just garnish on the original game.

This is a game that would be very thin as a single player experience, and is absolutely geared towards party fun. It has all of the advantages of the original Dr. Mario, including the opportunity to handicap players according to their ability, and it's a great time with multiple players. I can't help but feel that I should have gotten more out of this, but I'm also grateful for the chance to play Dr. Mario with my wife and two of my many, many kids. I'll give this game an 8.8/10. If you like Dr. Mario, and have several people with whom you like to play, this is a must-buy.

Up next is a game I'd been looking forward to for a long time, and have already finished. Check back soon (?) for a review!

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 152): Mario Tennis

Despite my love of Mario Golf, I've actually spent precious little time with the tennis side of the Mario sports universe. I love Mario Tennis: Power Tour for the Game Boy Advance, but my experience with Mario Tennis on home console basically consists of getting slaughtered by my cousin at his house, turning it off, and going back to playing Goldeneye 007 and Mario Kart 64. But, I was feeling some Mario sports action, and figured that if I was going to play one, I should go back to the beginning, rather than jumping into Power Tennis or Ultra Smash. 

Mario Tennis is a Tennis game that mostly shies away from some of the more arcade-like additions in the Game Boy Advance game, preferring a more simulation style to the gameplay. No flaming or tornadic tennis balls here! You can hit several different kinds of shots with two buttons, depending on the order you press them. You can hit lobs, drop shots, top spin, back spin, and smashes, and even a beginner will be able to be playing competently in minutes. As with real tennis, the big advantage that you get is if you can set your feet a bit, drive through the ball, and strike with power and control. So the game is basically trying to keep your opponent on the move by sending the ball as far away as possible, making them hit weaker returns, while you gradually grab the advantage. It feels like real tennis, which is the main hallmark of why these Mario sports games are so very successful.

Unfortunately, this is a really thin game, single player wise. They put time and effort in making sure that the tennis engine was right, but there isn't a ton else to do in this game besides play standard games of tennis. You have a set of three tournaments which increase in difficulty, but you can easily clear all of these within an hour. There are very few unlockable characters, and they are really easy to get. You also have your standard ring attack mode (like in Golf), and can play in singles or double. Weirdly, the doubles tournament mode cannot be played coop with a friend. In comparison to Golf, which had several modes and (most importantly) multiple distinct courses, this is a pretty basic game. While the comparison to Golf is a little unfair (there's only so much you can do with a tennis court), the comparisons to the handheld Mario Tennis from the same era are more damning. In Power Tour and Mario Tennis (Game Boy Color) have long and rewarding RPG modes in which you train up your character through the ranks to become the best in the world. They basically have the same physics, too, so there's really no reason that they couldn't have included some more depth on the single player side in the 64 version. 

Playing, with friends, however, is far more fun. You can play in doubles matches against the computer, there are plenty of different characters with different play styles available, and head to head tennis is just more fun against a real human than it is against a CPU. The game uses the 64's native 4 controller ports well, offering a lot of party fun for a console that is well known for it. This is where the deep and well-tuned game play pay off, but I can't help but feel that there was more that could have been done with this game. 

Graphically, the game looks nice. It's an N64 game, so don't expect too much. But the courts and characters are brightly colored and charming, and the game runs very smoothly.

The music is your typical late '90s early 2000s Camelot game, composed by Saturaba. It's not as good as the music in any of the Mario Golf games, but it's solid.

All in all, I was left a bit dissatisfied by my experience here, but if the game did not have the word "Mario" in the title, I think I would have been more appreciative of what they've accomplished, so I have to try to be fair. They made a game that was explicitly intended to be accessible to a wide group of people, playable with multiple friends, and that feels like tennis. They accomplished all of these goals. I just wish that they had gone just a bit farther with those goals, as this could have been a really tremendous game, much like Power Tour. But they what they delivered is good, so I'll give this game a 8.3/10.

Up next on What I'm Playing is a game I picked up in a lot a while back and had been meaning to give a try for a while. Check back in soon for my next review! Teaser below:

-TRO