Dr. Mario World Beginner’s Guide: Tips, Cheats and Strategies

Dr. Mario World is Nintendo’s latest release, reviving the long-dormant franchise as a free to play mobile title. It plays a bit like Tetris or Puyo Puyo, with you having to match multicoloured viruses with pills of the same colour to eliminate them. The levels start simple, with just one virus and one coloured pill and quite quickly ramp up in difficulty. You’ll face numerous different viruses and have multicoloured pills to tackle them with.

To help get you up to speed, we thought we’d put together a beginner’s guide that includes a good few tips and tricks. It won’t turn you into a proper doctor, but it should help you eliminate the odd virus or two.

Dr. Mario World Tips and Tricks:

• How Dr. Mario works: Dr. Mario provides you with a bunch of challenging levels that involve eliminating all coloured viruses. To achieve that, you have to match them with a pill of the same colour Tetris-style. You’ll receive different coloured pills at random and have to drop them on the board, striving to match them with viruses of the same colour. You’ll often receive multicoloured pills – particularly as you get further into the game. In these instances, the coloured half of the pill that didn’t match will remain in the board, and you can use it to match other viruses. Lining up your placements with some good forward planning is the aim of the game here.
• Aim to destroy multiple viruses with the same pill: This is particularly handy advice when you have a multicoloured pill, as you can destroy multiple viruses in one fell swoop. Line it up so that you burst a virus and then the other half of the pill falls onto a virus of the same colour. Never waste halves of pills if you can use them to save yourself time and energy.
• You can move pill halves after they destroy a virus: If you destroy a virus with a multicoloured pill, the half that isn’t the same colour of the virus will remain afterwards. You can then move that half around like you do a regular pill and use it to either pop another virus immediately, or pop it in a location where it won’t get in the way.
• Trigger power-ups whenever possible: Power-ups in Dr. Mario World are incredibly effective, capable of clearing out multiple lines of viruses in one fell swoop. Take coloured shells, for example. You can trigger these as you would viruses, by matching three of them, and they’ll then destroy everything in a horizontal line. Prioritise these whenever they’re available.
• Save items for when you really need them: Items can give you various different boosts during a level if you activate them before you start. We recommend at least trying a level before using one though. For starters, they cost gems – the premium currency. You can get some for free while playing, but not many so you really shouldn’t waste them. Also, the items provide different bonuses so you should wait and learn what you need to help you beat the level rather than waste them when you don’t need them.
• Use the rainbow pill to eliminate mistakes: If you make a mistake, and you totally will, there is a solution: the rainbow pill. You can get this in every level and it only requires you to match a few times to get it. The rainbow pill basically serves as a pill of any colour, so you can use it to match with anything. Provided at least two viruses or pills of the same colour are part of the three, the rainbow will serve as the third.
• Use your skill as soon as it’s charged: Aside from the rainbow pill, you’ll also charge up your chosen doctor’s skill as you match like crazy during a level. Each doctor – be it Mario, Peach, or Bowser – has a different skill that serves a different purpose. Learn what it does and use it appropriately. Don’t be shy though, as there’s no real reason not to use it as soon as it’s charged. That’s just wasting the potential charge you’d get from future matches.
• Save your gold for assistant characters: Out of the seven possible boosters, you can only purchase two with gold. The rest require diamonds – the premium currency. The two boosters that you can purchase with gold are pretty worthless: one boosts your score, the other provides a random booster. Neither are going to be particularly useful when you face a challenging level. Instead, we’d recommend saving your gold to purchase an assistant character instead. These guys provide you with various statistical bonuses, and even if you unlock multiple of the same character, they’ll get a skill boost. It’s never a waste.

Glen Fox

Head of Editorial

Glen has over a decade's worth of experience in gaming journalism, writing for Pocket Gamer, Pocket Tactics, Nintendo Life, and Gfinity. When he's not badgering everyone about the dangers of passive text, you can probably find him playing Wild Rift.