Why is Kirby Super Star eight games in one?

His explanation is on record, given in Nintendo's own developer interview for the Super NES Classic Edition. Asked why he made the game an omnibus, Sakurai answered: games that took too long to beat kept hitting the market, and by creating an omnibus collection of quick to beat individual scenarios, each complete with its own unique gameplay, he could provide a lot of content without causing players to grow tired of any one style. He called the finished game the antithesis of that trend: where rival cartridges sold length, this one sold variety, at the high prices of the era answered with density instead of hours.

The count on the American box, 8 GAMES IN ONE!, is advertising arithmetic over a real structure. The cartridge holds six primary games: Spring Breeze, Dyna Blade, Gourmet Race, The Great Cave Offensive, Revenge of Meta Knight, and Milky Way Wishes, plus a seventh, The Arena, a boss rush unlocked at the end, plus two minigames, Samurai Kirby and Megaton Punch. Nintendo's own description splits it as seven short subsections and two minigames; the box rounds the shelf of modes into eight games, and the honest answer is that it depends which shelf item you count, which is rather the point of an omnibus.

The format also served the game's other two pillars. Cooperative Helpers and fighting game movesets needed varied stages to show off in, and a beginner needed a first game that ended quickly: Spring Breeze, the Dream Land remake, is deliberately the shortest, placed first as the on-ramp. Eight short games were not a bundle of leftovers. They were the design.