The first Stafy game went through development on all three of Nintendo's Game Boy systems before eventually being released on the Game Boy Advance. The project started in 1995 for the Game Boy, switched to the Game Boy Color in 1998, and finally, just before the game was finished in 1999, was moved to being developed on the new GBA hardware. Because of these constant platform changes, the game's final release was pushed back all the way to 2002.

Nintendo initially planned to give the Game Boy Advance a large-scale release in mainland China through their subsidiary in the region, iQue. However, they ultimately pulled out following rampant piracy of the system's first few Chinese releases. Consequently, Chinese localizations of several other games were cancelled despite being mostly complete and sent to the Chinese government for review. On March 25, 2019, game preservationist collective Forest of Illusion would leak twelve of these Chinese-language builds online, covering the following games:

• Advance Wars
• DK: King of Swing
• Densetsu no Starfy
• Densetsu no Starfy 2
• Famicom Mini Collection
• Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade
• Kuru Kuru Kururin
• Kururin Paradise
• Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
• Mario Kart: Super Circuit
• Polarium Advance
• Tomato Adventure