The Super Mario franchise really has a staggering amount of spinoffs. There's everything from Mario Party to Mario Kart to Mario Sports for fans to choose from when they'd like a different genre of game starring Mario and his friends. If that wasn't enough, the Dr. Mario franchise has offered fans a Super Mario puzzle series since 1990. Nintendo's latest entry in the franchise was Dr. Mario World, which was a part of Nintendo's greater foray into mobile games. Sadly, Dr. Mario World is now offline, but odds are that the Dr. Mario spinoff series will return on a Nintendo console someday.
If Nintendo does make another Dr. Mario game someday soon, it should use Dr. Mario World as a reference point. Although Dr. Mario World got mixed reviews and received some criticism for its monetization, other aspects of the game were very clever and built on the Dr. Mario game formula well. A new Dr. Mario game on a console could build on these ideas, making them more complex while polishing other aspects of Dr. Mario World that were too simplistic or frustrating. From solid multiplayer to a wide roster of multiplayer characters, Dr. Mario World has a lot to offer the franchise.
Dr. Mario World's Potential Contributions
Dr. Mario World differed greatly from previous Dr. Mario games in that it had an extremely long list of playable characters. While some games in the series have allowed fans to play as Wario or Luigi, those games pale in comparison to Dr. Mario World's staggering 45 playable characters. Featuring a colorful cast ranging from Dr. Bowser to Dr. Waluigi to Dr. Goomba Tower, all of whom had unique statistics and abilities, Dr. Mario World offered fans a lot of options in determining their own playstyle when solving puzzles. It'd be great to see the next Dr. Mario game feature a cast even half as large and diverse as Dr. Mario World's roster, rather than limiting fans to Mario alone.
The multiplayer component of Dr. Mario World deserves some praise too. Some critics credited the multiplayer as one of Dr. Mario World's strongest aspects, with each character's attack and defense stats outlining new layers of strategy; players had to factor each other's character choices in as they charged up attacks and buried each other in viruses. The next Dr. Mario game deserves similarly complex multiplayer, with attack and defense stats affecting each player's performance and special abilities turning the tide of competition.
Dr. Mario Has Room to Improve
Perhaps the most important place where Dr. Mario can improve on Dr. Mario World is simply the role of microtransactions and loot drops in the game. While Dr. Mario's simple puzzle gameplay made it perfect for a mobile adaptation, players responded negatively to Diamonds, the in-game currency bought with real money. Diamonds could help players get past difficult levels, and they also served as a way to get random new doctors through the Staffing menu. Dr. Mario World players disliked both the influence of Diamonds on the game design and the fact that playable characters could only be collected through random chance. It'd be better if the next Dr. Mario game sets clear objectives that unlock characters, rather than using a gacha system.
Dr. Mario World may be gone, but the franchise probably isn't going anywhere. Nintendo has released a fair few different Dr. Mario projects in the last several years, suggesting that it's interested in exploring this particular subseries of Super Mario titles. For all fans down, Nintendo decided to shut down Dr. Mario World partially because it's working on the next incarnation of the series, meaning it would rather dedicate more resources to Dr. Mario's future. Between Mario Party Superstars and Mario Golf: Super Rush, Super Mario spinoffs are going strong right now. Odds are that Dr. Mario will join these games again someday soon.