Dr. Luigi

Dr. Luigi is a tile-matching puzzle video game. In each round of the game, the player controls Luigi to eliminate the randomly placed viruses. Randomly colored pills are dropped onto the top of the field, distinguished by a bottle, and can be rotated by the player in four directions.

When four or more capsule halves or viruses of matching color are aligned in vertical or horizontal configurations, they disappear. Any remaining floating capsules fall. The main objective is to complete levels, by eliminating all viruses from the playing field. A game over occurs if capsules reach the top of the playing field.

Dr. Luigi was developed by Arika, the developers of Dr. Mario Online Rx and Dr. Mario Express in 2008, and Nintendo SPD.

Most of the contents are reused gameplay from old games, such as Virus Buster, which retains a similar concept from Online Rx, with the addition of updated graphics and sound. The main theme is a remix of the original track from Dr. Mario in 1990, composed by Hirokazu Tanaka. The game was developed for the Year of Luigi celebration, which celebrated the 30th anniversary of Luigi's debut in 1983.

Dr. Luigi's critical reception was average, having a score of 65/100 on review aggregator website Metacritic based on 38 reviews. Fellow review aggregator OpenCritic assessed that the game received fair approval, being recommended by 30% of critics. In the first week of release in Europe, Dr. Luigi was the number one bestseller on the Wii U eShop, ahead of F1 Race Stars and the re-release of The Legend of the Mystical Ninja.

The game's new gimmick, Operation L, received mixed opinions, mainly involving its simplistic additions to the Dr. Mario format. GameSpot's Heidi Kemps called Operation L "a disappointment" due to the shape's oversized nature that didn't allow for specific placement. Contrarily, IGN reviewer Scott Thompson originally thought that L-shaped pills would be a "shallow gimmick", but found it to be more entertaining than the traditional Dr.