In Mario's life, Dr. Mario is basically the first Mario spinoff. While you can consider certain games to reach that point first, like Golf prior to the Mario series, Dr. Mario is the first game to really be considered a start of a series, given how there are future Dr. Mario games. It is not really the worst-selling Mario spin-off series, because for example, Mario Golf and Mario Strikers sold less than the Dr. Mario series. However, note that Dr. Mario's first games (it was released on NES and Game Boy simultaneously) sold more than 10 million altogether, and if you exclude that, Dr. Mario never really sold that much. In other words, Dr. Mario is a frontloaded series and its popularity has much to do with the original games compared to the games that come after.
Another point with Dr. Mario being unpopular overall is the fact that only Dr. Mario 64 is a fully-featured game, rather than being digital-only or part of a compilation. In a sense, it's like Bejeweled Deluxe where the first game was fun even if it's feature-light, but the former mattered more that it sold very well, and nowadays selling the game at the original price doesn't cut it due to a lack of content. Similarly, every other Dr. Mario game besides the Nintendo 64 version didn't have much content, and thus was preferred to be sold digitally at a lower price point. Because of how it's a digital-only game, it is basically less overall popular due to a lack of outreach since it's practically competing with other Nintendo games, unlike indie games which does not necessarily have that type of competition.
On the Super Mario Wiki itself, Dr. Mario has overall less coverage compared to many Mario series, so while the Super Mario series and Mario Kart series have ample contributors to add or organise information, Dr. Mario's coverage of information is overall smaller. In fact, Dr. Mario World, a game that has a lot of information pertaining to it, might be rather barren if it weren't for some passionate contributors who were willing to do it justice.
One possible theory which I come up with would be a lack of familiar characters. For a long time, Dr. Mario is practically just Mario and the viruses, and Dr. Mario 64 infamously has Wario Land 3 characters, who are not the most famous bunch. It was only until Dr. Luigi that Luigi gets added, and Dr. Mario World is the first game that added many more Mario characters, and in the eyes of some fans, the new characters diluted the prestige of being a doctor given how there are baby characters becoming doctors as well.
Another possible theory is that the games are not very forgiving and is overall slow. To elaborate, Dr. Mario requires lining up capsules in four-in-a-row or -column to eliminate viruses, but if something goes in the way of the row, it's cumbersome to recover. With Tetris and Puyo Puyo, a mistake is not so difficult to recover, but making a mistake in Dr. Mario is more time-consuming to recover. Another point is the rigidity of the capsule movement. Even in the latest traditional Dr. Mario (Miracle Cure), capsules still move in one tile increments, and that might be a bit difficult for players to gauge the movements. To be fair, the newer games have faster capsule movements, but the earlier games do not have that luxury, so if garbage capsules fall, it is a slog for them to finish falling.
Finally, another theory is that Dr. Mario has already peaked in gameplay in the first game, and the series hardly tried new things to innovate. This might have caused players to think that, because they experienced the first Dr. Mario game, they don't need to try the newest games. The series has a few incremental improvements, but nothing too eye-catching. Say what you want with certain Mario series doing something new like Mario Kart doing double characters or adding anti-gravity, or Mario Golf reiterating Speed Golf, but at least those do something new that gives them a breath of fresh air. Dr. Mario didn't quite have that marketable spark that more famous Mario series got.
In your opinion, why is Dr. Mario not that popular these days?
Thank you for reading.
Another point with Dr. Mario being unpopular overall is the fact that only Dr. Mario 64 is a fully-featured game, rather than being digital-only or part of a compilation. In a sense, it's like Bejeweled Deluxe where the first game was fun even if it's feature-light, but the former mattered more that it sold very well, and nowadays selling the game at the original price doesn't cut it due to a lack of content. Similarly, every other Dr. Mario game besides the Nintendo 64 version didn't have much content, and thus was preferred to be sold digitally at a lower price point. Because of how it's a digital-only game, it is basically less overall popular due to a lack of outreach since it's practically competing with other Nintendo games, unlike indie games which does not necessarily have that type of competition.
On the Super Mario Wiki itself, Dr. Mario has overall less coverage compared to many Mario series, so while the Super Mario series and Mario Kart series have ample contributors to add or organise information, Dr. Mario's coverage of information is overall smaller. In fact, Dr. Mario World, a game that has a lot of information pertaining to it, might be rather barren if it weren't for some passionate contributors who were willing to do it justice.
One possible theory which I come up with would be a lack of familiar characters. For a long time, Dr. Mario is practically just Mario and the viruses, and Dr. Mario 64 infamously has Wario Land 3 characters, who are not the most famous bunch. It was only until Dr. Luigi that Luigi gets added, and Dr. Mario World is the first game that added many more Mario characters, and in the eyes of some fans, the new characters diluted the prestige of being a doctor given how there are baby characters becoming doctors as well.
Another possible theory is that the games are not very forgiving and is overall slow. To elaborate, Dr. Mario requires lining up capsules in four-in-a-row or -column to eliminate viruses, but if something goes in the way of the row, it's cumbersome to recover. With Tetris and Puyo Puyo, a mistake is not so difficult to recover, but making a mistake in Dr. Mario is more time-consuming to recover. Another point is the rigidity of the capsule movement. Even in the latest traditional Dr. Mario (Miracle Cure), capsules still move in one tile increments, and that might be a bit difficult for players to gauge the movements. To be fair, the newer games have faster capsule movements, but the earlier games do not have that luxury, so if garbage capsules fall, it is a slog for them to finish falling.
Finally, another theory is that Dr. Mario has already peaked in gameplay in the first game, and the series hardly tried new things to innovate. This might have caused players to think that, because they experienced the first Dr. Mario game, they don't need to try the newest games. The series has a few incremental improvements, but nothing too eye-catching. Say what you want with certain Mario series doing something new like Mario Kart doing double characters or adding anti-gravity, or Mario Golf reiterating Speed Golf, but at least those do something new that gives them a breath of fresh air. Dr. Mario didn't quite have that marketable spark that more famous Mario series got.
In your opinion, why is Dr. Mario not that popular these days?
Thank you for reading.
