PixlBit

This simple puzzle game is extremely fun and addicting

Kirby's Star Stacker was released for the Game Boy in 1997. It was developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo. It's a puzzle game using stars and Kirby's three friends from Kirby's Dreamland 2 (the owl, hamster, and fish). It amazes me how Kirby can do so well in any genre--platformer, sports, racing, puzzle--his games are always so full of charm and pure fun, and that's certainly the case with KSS.

There are six modes in the game: Round Clear (which is the main game), VS (multiplayer), Challenge, Time Attack, Rules, and Records. For Round Clear, you choose the difficulty, but it's not just the same thing with added difficulty, it's actually a continuation of the game. So once you beat Normal, you can move on to Hard, then to Very Hard, and finally Super Hard. The game does a really good job of ramping up the difficulty at the right pace. It starts off very easy and gets increasingly more difficult.

So here's how the puzzle part works: you have to clear a certain number of stars in each stage, shown on the right side of the screen. The only puzzle pieces are the stars, Kirby's three fiends, and later on blocks and bomb pieces. Your goal is to sandwich stars between two of the same characters, whether that's horizontally or vertically. If you get a combo, Kirby will shoot out stars and try to fill in any gaps, potentially getting more stars cleared. It's so simple that you're prone to think "That's it?" But this simple puzzle game quickly becomes tough without getting complicated or confusing.

Higher difficulties add more things to work with, such as bomb blocks, which will take out a whole row if you clear them (very helpful!) and blocks which change into stars after you clear them (meaning you have to clear them twice). There's also a hand which appears that bumps up the puzzle pieces every few turns. If the puzzle pieces reach the top middle part of the screen, it's Game Over.

Sometimes before a level starts, the game will hint at where to place the first piece. When you do, it will clear the whole stage. This was certainly fun to watch, but it took away from the challenge of that particular stage. I have to wonder if they added this every now and then just to give you a break. KSS is so addicting that you won't even want to take a break; it's hard to put down! You want to keep going, and if you lose on a stage, you want to try it again.

The game will start with you clearing just a few stars, but by the end, you're required to clear 60 stars or more! This may seem daunting, but you can clear a ton of stars in a short amount of time, especially if the screen is filled with puzzle pieces. Many times I thought I was going to die, my pieces almost at the top, when I suddenly got lucky and one character cleared a stack, which led to another clearing, then another, and I beat the stage! Beating a difficult stage is so invigorating! Puzzle pieces will drop much faster starting on Very Hard mode. Suddenly, this easy-going puzzle game becomes intense and nerve-wracking! Super Hard mode is not faster, just trickier. It's very challenging! One stage had nothing but blocks; you couldn't clear anything until the hand bumped up the pieces to reveal the characters at the bottom of the screen.

So rest assured that KSS will challenge you. If it weren't so simple, Very Hard and Super Hard would be very complicated, but they're simply challenging. When you lose, you'll know why you lost--it was your fault. You can't blame the game.

In addition to the main game, KSS also has Challenge, which has you trying to stack as many stars as possible on any of the difficulties. Then there's Time Attack, which challenges you to stack as many stars as possible in three minutes on any difficulty. Rules explains how to play, which seems unnecessary due to the simple nature of the game; I picked up on what to do right away without looking at the rules. Records show you the top three scores for Challenge and Time Attack. There's also a multiplayer mode, but I imagine in 1997 both gamers had to have a copy of the game and a link cable to play together, but I'm sure it's a lot of fun.

Final Verdict--4.5 Stars: Highly Recommended

Like any good puzzle game, KSS is addicting and hard to put down. The game eases you into it slowly, ramping up the difficulty at just the right pace. It's fun, intense, and challenging. And we would expect nothing less from a Kirby game. It's available to download on the 3DS Virtual Console, and I would recommend you do so if you enjoy puzzle games or Kirby games. I love Kirby games mainly because they're just fun; they always have a lot of charm and have that feeling of pure fun. But unlike some Kirby games, KSS is not an easy game; give it some time, and you'll find a very challenging game, in a good way.

Join me every Saturday as we take a look back at all kinds of retro games, good and bad.