Box Art Brawl – Duel: Kirby’s Star Stacker (Game Boy)

We are back, back, back with another edition of Box Art Brawl!

It was a biggie last time, with a pair of F-Zero X covers facing off against each other. That’s not to say it was a close-fought competition, mind you. The character-focused Japanese cover walked away with a comfortable win, taking 84% of the vote and leaving Europe/North America in the dust with the remaining 16%. Yikes.

This week, to celebrate its arrival on the NSO Game Boy library, we are taking a look at Kirby’s Star Stacker. This Tetris-style puzzler first launched in 1997 (’98 on Super Famicom) and tasked us all with lining up Star Blocks between two matching Friend Blocks to make them disappear. Is it the most memorable Kirby game out there? No. But you can’t blame anyone for trying to cash in on a bit of Tetris fever.

Europe and North America opted for the same design in this one, so we’ve got a good old-fashioned duel on our hands. Let’s meet the contenders…

Be sure to cast your votes in the poll below; but first, let’s check out the box art designs themselves.

North America / Europe

Okay, this is cute. The Western design opts for a sketched falling block design in the background, but the pink puffball takes centre stage. A particularly happy Kirb clings onto a flying warp star, zooming around the large logo that occupies the top half of the box. It’s simple, but gosh, isn’t it sweet?

Japan

What’s better than one Kirby? Two Kirbys! That seems to have been the design approach to the Japanese cover art. The background remains much the same, now mapped onto an even larger star border to make the most of the region’s vertical box real estate, but Kirby still takes centre stage — albeit in a different, upright pose. But as we say, there’s also the bonus Kirb walking along the logo at the bottom of the box. Look at that little guy! Have you ever seen someone happier to be doing a falling block puzzle??

Thanks for voting! We’ll see you next time for another round of Box Art Brawl.