The game is a typical "match the falling blocks" game but it makes use of different types, friend blocks, star blocks, bomb blocks, and hard blocks. Three friend blocks stacked or matched in a row between will disappear. Bomb blocks will destroy a full row. The elimination of Star Blocks removes stars from a Clear Count which must be emptied to clear every stage.
The game had a remake on Super Famicom known as Kirby's Super Star Stacker but because the North American SNES ended its life, the game never left Japan until it was made available, untranslated, on the Nintendo Switch Online service in 2023 with the same name as the Game Boy game.
Tropes seen across both games:
- American Kirby Is Hardcore: Averted with the American cover of Star Stacker which has Kirby smiling.
- Border-Occupying Decorations: The game features two Super Game Boy borders, both depicting Kirby and the Animal Friends. The first border features them against the various blocks that appear in game, while the second depicts them, a bunch of stars, and a rainbow against a blue checkerboard.
- Excuse Plot: Story mode of Super Star Stacker. King Dedede blasts Mr. Star out of the sky with his cannon which shatters him into various pieces and blows them across Dreamland. Kirby sees what happened and offers to get him back together.
- Songs in the Key of Panic: The music becomes more frantic and fast-paced the more the field fills up with blocks.
- Super Title 64 Advance: The planned North American name of the Super Famicom title was Kirby's Super Star Stacker.
