Collection essentials #208: Kirby no KiraKira Kids / Kirby Super Star Stacker (SNES)

Kirby’s Dream Land 3 was the last SNES game Nintendo published outside Japan, and yet Kirby was still not done with the console. This is the second “falling blocks” puzzle game for Kirby on the system after Avalanche, only this one is entirely original rather than a reskin of an existing puzzle game.

Kirby Star Stacker was a late Game Boy release, coming out in 1997. It didn’t make my list, in part because this remake exists. Puzzle games like this definitely want a console version for easy 2-player, because with Game Boy you needed two consoles, two cartridges and a link cable in order to play with friends, which often wasn’t practical. Nintendo decided the now-old SNES was a suitable choice for a Star Stacker remake, even though the console was practically done by 1998. Japan was more receptive to games coming out for yesterday’s consoles, and I guess people in the rest of the world were more fixated on the newest state-of-the-art games. And so, the game got enhanced graphics in the style of Dream Land 3, plus a new single-player story mode.

Kirby Super Star Stacker is fairly simple, yet still is a little different and stands out in the genre. The play area blocks consist of either generic star blocks, or blocks that represent different animal friends from Dream Land 2. When two animal friend blocks touch, they eliminate each other. And if at any point there is a row or column of star blocks in between two of the same animal block, that entire row or column will be eliminated. As with most puzzle games like this, the key to the game is combos, as you’ll be greatly rewarded by making a chain reaction of blocks that disappear and cause other blocks to fall into a spot where they will also be eliminated. When a chain starts happening in this game, some temporary star blocks will fall from the sky to potentially eliminate two identical animal blocks that can’t be eliminated due to having a gap in between them. It’s actually not too hard to do well in this game, as sometimes big chains happen without needing to plan them ahead of time. It’s pretty easy to pick up and play and makes for a good multiplayer experience. In multiplayer, building chains will raise the other player’s stack, and once a stack reaches the top, it’s game over for that player.

Due to being such a late release for the console, Super Star Stacker got a low print run and it’s now pretty rare. I got really lucky in scoring my copy when I was a teenager, because someone listed on eBay with “Kirbys” in the title with no apostrophe, and at that time searching “Kirby” didn’t list it in the results, so hardly anyone saw it and I scored it for a great price. I mostly kept it in great shape, but sadly I foolishly for a long time exposed the side of it to strong sunlight and therefore the deep pink on that side of the box faded into a more dull shade. Ah well.

While it’s not my very favorite puzzle game of this sort on the system, it’s still a delightful game that deserves to be a collection essential.