# Retro Game: Dr. Mario & Puzzle League ## Overview This Game Boy Advance release is a puzzle-lover's dream, packing two of Nintendo's most addictive and timeless classics onto a single cartridge. The collection features an enhanced version of the NES hit *Dr. Mario* and a polished, back-to-basics edition of *Puzzle League* (also known as *Panel de Pon* or *Tetris Attack*). It's a perfect portable package, offering hundreds of hours of virus-busting and block-swapping gameplay. ## Background Released in 2005, this "2 Games in 1" cartridge was part of a Nintendo initiative to bring classic and beloved titles to the Game Boy Advance. Instead of being simple emulations, both games were enhanced specifically for the GBA hardware. *Dr. Mario* received a graphical facelift similar to its N64 counterpart, while *Puzzle League* was presented in a pure, unbranded form, letting its brilliant mechanics speak for themselves, much like the original *Panel de Pon* in Japan. This compilation provided players with two deep and endlessly replayable puzzle experiences. ## Gameplay This cartridge contains two separate, fully-featured games with distinct gameplay styles. ### Dr. Mario This classic falling-block puzzler tasks players with helping Dr. Mario eliminate colorful viruses that have infested a bottle. Mario drops two-toned vitamin capsules into the playfield, and the player must rotate and position them to create horizontal or vertical lines of four or more matching colors. When a line is completed and includes a virus, the virus is eliminated. The goal is to clear all the viruses on the screen to advance to the next, more challenging level. This GBA version features Classic, Vs. CPU, and Flash modes, along with multiplayer via the GBA Link Cable. ### Puzzle League This is a fast-paced, match-three puzzle game with a twist. The playfield slowly fills with rows of colored blocks from the bottom. The player controls a cursor to swap any two adjacent blocks horizontally. The goal is to align three or more matching blocks in a row or column, which makes them disappear. This can trigger chain reactions and combos as the blocks above fall into place, which is key to achieving high scores and sending "garbage blocks" to your opponent in Vs. mode. This version offers multiple modes, including Marathon, Timed, Garbage, and a challenging Puzzle mode with set layouts to solve.