You'll may play Dr. Mario more than you'd planned but you'll ultimately stay for Puzzle League.
Everyone and their sister is probably familar with the gameplay of Dr. Mario. There are nasty viruses strutting around inside a giant bottle like they own the place. As Dr. Mario, it's your job to direct matching colored pills at the viruses to get rid of them. This particular version of Dr. Mario is made a bit more intersting thanks to the Vs. CPU and Flash modes. These modes were in the N64 version of Dr. Mario and were one of the reasons that version was probably the best. Vs. CPU pits you against the CPU, which is nice if you don't have a buddy (or a link cable) to compete against. You can also adjust the CPU's difficulty and starting level. Flash mode plays a bit similarly to Vs. CPU mode, but you'll only win by eliminating the viruses that are flashing. Then there's the standard Classic mode, where you play for high scores until you fail to pass a level. Even if you do fail, you can retry but the score you had up until you failed will be reset to zero. Although Dr. Mario isn't as engaging as Puzzle League, it's still a pretty fun puzzle game and you may find yourself coming back to it more often than you might think.
Puzzle League is the best puzzle game of the two on this cart. In Japan the game is known as Panel de Pon on the Super Famicom. When the game was released in America on the SNES, the name was changed to Tetris Attack, probably to get people to take notice. Let's get one thing clear, though. Puzzle League really has nothing to do with Tetris. You aren't forming lines, and there aren't any falling blocks. Instead you have a cursor that can be moved across the screen to move the rising blocks. Match three blocks of the same color either vertically or horizontally and they disappear and you earn points. Simple in concept yet madly addicting. You can earn even more points if you can line four, five, six, seven, eight, nine or even ten blocks of the same color. If you need more blocks to work with, you can make the stack rise by tapping the L or R buttons. The more points you earn, the quicker the blocks will rise. There's a reason Puzzle League is considered by many to be one of the greatest puzzle games of all-time. You can create huge combos and chains and some of your best moves will come when the blocks are stacked so high, the game is about to end. The feeling you get from saving your own hide with a massive combo/chain is one of the best feelings in the world.
Being puzzle games, you really shouldn't expect ground breaking visuals, even by GBA standards. Dr. Mario's menus aren't anything spectacular but they do look far more inspired than what you'll find in Puzzle League, which menu screens look like your basic word pad documents on a computer. Dr. Mario also has the edge in character sprites on the sidelines. Those crazy viruses are hoping about under the magnifying glass as usual. You won't find any characters from Yoshi's Island or even any Pokemon in Puzzle League. Puzzle League does, however, give you a good amount of customizable backgrounds and logos to choose from. It isn't the same as having Yoshi, Blarg, or Lakitu in the background but its better than nothing. If the games appear to small, you can unlock Vertical modes for both games. Playing on a GBA SP or DS does feel a bit odd and will take some getting used to, but the graphics do look a lot better than when playing in the default setting, especially in Puzzle League.
Like the visuals, the game's audio isn't great either but the tunes are catchy. Dr. Mario has updated versions of classic songs like Fever and Chill. Que Que has been changed to Sneeze but it doesn't sound as good as it did on the N64 version. Puzzle League also has selectable songs but only a handful of tracks from Tetris Attack made it.
If you're a puzzel fanatic, or just get the puzzle jones from time to time, then Dr. Mario Puzzle League is a must own title. Yeah, Dr. Mario has been milked like a cow but the fact that it comes with one of the greatest games of all-time makes this compilation worth picking up. This is a cart that will keep you playing long after you've taken it out of the box.