Kirby's Star Stacker

Kirby's Star Stacker is a puzzle game developed by HAL Laboratory for the Game Boy. This game is Kirby's first puzzle game that is not a clone of an existing title.

It received a remake for the Super Famicom in Japan under the name Kirby no Kirakira Kizzu (roughly translated to Kirby's Sparkling Kids).

Gameplay
Blocks fall in pairs from the top of the play area. There are three types of blocks (called "friends" in the game), based on Kirby's friends from Kirby's Dream Land 2: Rick the hamster, Coo the owl, and Kine the fish. The object of the game is to score stars by placing one or more stas between two matching friends, which causes the friends and the stars to disappear, adding to the score total.

Modes of Play
There are four game modes in Star Stacker.


 * Round Clear - this is the main game, split into five difficulty modes (Normal, Hard, Very Hard, Super Hard, and Insane), each with a certain number of rounds. Rounds are cleared by eliminating a set number of stars. Each stage takes on a theme, such as forests or the galaxy. When each round is cleared, the player is rewarded with special artwork using the themes of each stage.


 * VS - the multiplayer mode.


 * Challenge - an endless mode. The object is to eliminate as many stars as possible before the stack of blocks reaches the top of the screen; a hand raises up the set of blocks, introducing a new row. Like Round Clear, in game artwork is awarded depending on the amount of stars collected, often encouraging the player to try harder next time (until the final picture is received).


 * Time Attack - eliminate as many stars as possible in 3 minutes.

There is a high score table for the Challenge and Time Attack modes, showing the top three scores for each mode.