Dr. Mario


 * For information on his default persona, see Mario.

Dr. Mario (, Dr. Mario) is the persona Mario assumes within the eponymous Dr. Mario series. Within his home series, Dr. Mario typically seeks to destroy a variety of dangerous es from harming the inhabitants of the.

Dr. Mario debuted in Super Smash Bros. Melee as an unlockable character, and returns in that capacity in both Super Smash Bros. 4 and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate after being absent from Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Origin
Dr. Mario is not a unique character, but rather just Mario wearing a doctor's garb. According to his eponymous debut game's manual, he took a break from adventuring in order to work in a virus research lab at the alongside Nurse Toadstool. When an experiment goes wrong, the hospital was flooded with three differently colored types of es. Arming himself with s, a medicine of his own invention, Dr. Mario set out to neutralize the outbreak.

Dr. Mario's gameplay sees Dr. Mario throwing Megavitamins into a prescription bottle. Afterward, the player can move and land them on Viruses, which spawn throughout the bottle. Connecting a line of four or more halves will make those halves disappear. If the other halves were suspended at the time, they will resume falling, but cannot be controlled any more. Connecting a line of three or more halves of Megavitamins to a Virus of the corresponding color, the Virus disintegrates. As such, blue Megavitamins eliminate blue Viruses (known as "Chill" in the Nintendo Comics System comic), red Megavitamins eliminate red viruses (known as "Fever" in the same comic), and yellow Megavitamins eliminate yellow viruses (known as "Weird" in the comic). Removing all of the Viruses on the screen advances the player to the next level. If the player runs out of Megavitamins or the bottle becomes completely filled with viruses still alive, the game ends. If the player reaches the final level on the highest difficulty, they will see a cutscene of the viruses climbing a tree and being taken in by a UFO, implying that they were not only diseases, but also aliens. The other endings show the same shot of the tree, but instead show bizarre images such as witches, flying books, and triceratopses piloting egg planes. The player can choose two songs, the upbeat Fever or funky Chill, while later Dr. Mario games have introduced extra songs such as Cube and Que Que.

All subsequent Dr. Mario games retain the core gameplay, with some also introducing new mechanics, but only two games feature actual plots - ' and '. Some Dr. Mario games have introduced new doctors, with ' introducing the titular character, and ' introducing doctor Miis. Dr. Luigi also introduces 3 new viruses, who have not been seen since. Multiple Dr. Mario games have been bundled with other titles, such as Puzzle League; Tetris; Yoshi's Cookie, or "Germ Buster", a mode based on Dr. Mario from the series.

In Dr. Mario 64, Dr. Mario seeks to reclaim his Megavitamins after they are stolen by on behalf of his master,, both from . However, Dr. Mario also has to contend with Wario, who seeks to steal the Megavitamins from Mad Scienstein and sell them for money.

In , the potential of an outbreak in the Mushroom Kingdom first mentioned in Dr. Mario comes to pass: red, blue and yellow Viruses appear en masse and are joined by the debuting green, light-blue, purple and pink Viruses. In response, Dr. Mario sets out to cure local inhabitants of their infections; beginning with level 11, he is joined by Dr. Peach in her bid to help the Toads, as well as Dr. Bowser, who wants to cure his minions himself. However, they are also joined by several other doctors (including Yoshi, Toad,, Bowser Jr., the Koopalings, Wario, Waluigi, Princess Daisy, Rosalina, Luma, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, a Goomba Tower and the returning Dr. Luigi) and, for the first time in the series, assistants from a variety of species within the Mario series.

Dr. Mario made his Mario Kart debut in  as an outfit, and would later reappear in Mario Kart Tour alongside Dr. Luigi, Dr. Bowser, and Dr. Peach.

Dr. Mario has also made a number of cameos outside of his home series. Most notably, he appears in the WarioWare series series via two s based on his debut game, while his medical garb can be unlocked in ' and '. In the Super Smash Bros. series, Dr. Mario is usually depicted as being slower, yet stronger, than his normal self. A trophy in Super Smash Bros. Melee attributes his sluggishness to lack of exercise, whereas SSB4 variously attributes this to his white coat or medical doctorate status. In regard to Dr. Mario's raw strength, Palutena's Guidance attributes it to his knowledge of anatomy.

In Super Smash Bros.
In Super Smash Bros., Dr. Mario was briefly mentioned in 's biography as one of his many other past professions.

As a playable character
Dr. Mario appears in Super Smash Bros. Melee as an unlockable character. He can be unlocked either by clearing with  without using any continues, or by playing 100 Versus Mode matches. According to Super Smash Bros. series creator Masahiro Sakurai, he included Dr. Mario because of his liking of the Dr. Mario series' soundtrack and his desire to include some of its songs for Melee. Although Dr. Mario's design is based off his appearance in Dr. Mario, Melee modified his design by giving him dark gray pants instead of his traditional white pants.

As a clone of Mario, Dr. Mario has the same moveset; according to Sakurai, however, Dr. Mario's concept involves "the parts that aren't different are the parts that are different." To reflect this, a number of Dr. Mario's moves have aesthetic and mechanical modifications, with three being the most noticeable examples: Dr. Mario's forward smash discharges electricity instead of producing a small burst of fire, his neutral special move uses Megavitamins instead of Fireballs, and his side special move, Super Sheet, is a white bed sheet that has more vertical range and less horizontal range compared to Cape. On a lesser note, some of Dr. Mario's animations are less energetic and thus make him appear more serious and contemplative, which Sakurai jokingly said "make him seem like an old man."

According to Sakurai, Dr. Mario himself also had his attributes modified, which is reflected in him being stronger than Mario. Although this stronger power was supposed to be counterbalanced by slower speed as noted within Dr. Mario's trophy, in actuality, almost all of Dr. Mario's speed attributes are equal to Mario's. The only exception is his air speed, which is actually faster than Mario's. Outside of this, the only instance in which Dr. Mario is slower than his normal self is in regard to his neutral attack.

Thanks to Dr. Mario's superior KO potential and his mobility being marginally better than Mario's, he has fared better than his normal self within the competitive scene. As such, Dr. Mario is currently ranked 13th out of 26 on the tier list, which places him in the B- tier.

Trophies
As a playable character, Dr. Mario has three trophies - a normal trophy won beating the with Dr. Mario on any difficulty, and "Smash Red" and "Smash Blue" trophies are acquired by beating the Adventure and All-Star modes, respectively.

In Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Dr. Mario was one of the five playable characters in Melee who did not return as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Instead, his only appearance in the game is as a single sticker that can only be used to power up characters from the Mario universe and. Additionally, he is referenced with the inclusion of "Dr. Mario (Melee)" as an immediately available music track for PictoChat, and the inclusion of "" as an unlockable music track for Flat Zone 2.

Unfinished data
While Dr. Mario does not appear as a playable character, an unfinished character file that makes reference to him exists inside the game's files, called. There is no explanation as to why the data exists; however, it is commonly inferred that he was intended to be included in Brawl's roster before being scrapped for unknown reasons.

As a playable character
After being absent from Brawl, Dr. Mario returned as an unlockable character in Super Smash Bros. 4, becoming the first fighter in the series' history to return as a playable character after skipping a previous installment, and the only one in Smash 4 who is not DLC. His design is now based on a combination of his appearance as of Dr. Mario 64 and the dark gray pants he sported in Melee. Although he was originally planned to be an alternate costume of, Dr. Mario ultimately retained his status as a clone late in SSB4's development for the purpose of appealing to his Melee fanbase.

Although Dr. Mario's moveset is mostly unchanged since Melee, he received his own Final Smash called Doctor Finale. True to its name, it is Dr. Mario's version of Mario Finale and fittingly uses a pair of gigantic, intertwining Megavitamins that deal more damage.

Unlike in Melee, Dr. Mario now properly functions as a stronger, yet slower version of Mario: he still possesses noticeably more power overall than his normal self (which has been increased even further since Melee), but he is now noticeably slower overall. Although Dr. Mario's overall frame data is very fast like Mario's, both his combo game and recovery are noticeably worse than his normal self's, with the latter trait's weakness being attributed to his slower mobility.

These factors have resulted in Dr. Mario's tier status and tournament representation both suffering from a vast downturn compared to his appearance in Melee. To reflect this, Dr. Mario is currently ranked 48th out of 54 on the tier list, placing him in the F tier and rendering him a low-tier character.

As a playable character
Dr. Mario returns as an unlockable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. He still functions as a stronger and slower version of, yet has nevertheless been marginally decloned: Dr. Mario now has slightly higher traction, a new and significantly stronger back throw, and updated animations for his idle pose and Super Sheet. Aside from these changes, Dr. Mario has also gained a new down aerial, which possesses meteor smashing potential like his normal self's forward aerial.

Despite the term "Echo Fighter" being used in Ultimate to denote clones, Dr. Mario is not labeled as such, and no official reason has been given for this oddity. However, it is worth noting that no clone characters introduced before SSB4 are labeled as Echo Fighters.

Trivia

 * Dr. Mario is the first fighter to debut on more than one console simultaneously, as the original Dr. Mario originally released on both the Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy on July 27th, 1990.
 * Dr. Mario and Young Link are the only clones who are the exact same character as the character they are cloned from. However, in Young Link's case, this only applies to his appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee.
 * He is the only character in the series whose voice clips are shared with another character, although Luigi used to share Mario’s voice clips as well with the only difference being his voice having a higher pitch.
 * Dr. Mario is the first fighter to return after skipping a previous installment.
 * Dr. Mario is the only fighter to skip an installment of Super Smash Bros., that being Brawl.
 * Unfinished data, however, indicates that he might have been intended to make a playable appearance in that installment as well.
 * As of Super Smash Bros. 4, Dr. Mario is also the only character of any kind to have attributes affected by equipment-esque multipliers.
 * If Mario and Dr. Mario are counted separately, Dr. Mario is one of two characters to not make any sort of animated appearances in cutscenes or trailers, the other being Ryu.