Dr. Mario - Reception

While parents were critical of the premise due to its inclusion of medicine in a children's game, Dr. Mario and its re-releases received generally favorable reviews. One notably negative review, by ACE, scored the Game Boy version 510/1000. It criticizes the game's uninspiring graphics and repetitive play. The review also says the game "reeks of plagiarism", stating it is worse than the original games it is modelled after.

Dr. Mario is rated the 134th best game released on a Nintendo system in Nintendo Power's Top 200 Games list, by ScrewAttack as the seventh best Mario game of all time, and by IGN as the 51st best NES game of all time. IGN also rates the game's soundtrack, composed by Hirokazu Tanaka, as seventh in its list of the top ten greatest 8-Bit soundtracks.

The Game Boy Advance re-release as part of the Classic NES series holds a rating of 66% on Metacritic based on 10 reviews. Most reviews point out the game's addictiveness and praise the addition of wireless multiplayer, but some question the relevance of the game's re-release as a standalone title. Eurogamer said the game was "still as playable, addictive and maddening as it was back in 1990" but criticized Nintendo for re-releasing classic games as standalone titles in the Classic NES Series instead of as a compilation, like Atari's Atari Anthology or Midway's Midway Arcade Treasures. Craig Harris, in his review for IGN, sarcastically expressed unease over the game's use of medicine. He enjoyed the addictive gameplay, but criticized the black-and-white manual which made it difficult to understand the color-based gameplay mechanics. While 1UP.com notes that the game's "color-matching action is more engrossing than Mario Bros.' turtle-punching platform hopping", the reviewer strongly questions whether this re-release is worth its sale price by itself when a version of Dr. Mario was included in another Game Boy Advance game, WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames!.