You control a shinobi, Joe Musashi, who must battle his way through each level in search of hostages which must be rescued. You have shurikens, kicks and punches to defend yourself with, as well as powerful ninja magic which can clear the screen of enemies in one go.

Each level is broken down into smaller scenes, and hostages are guarded by big blokes who throw swords. Watch out for gun-toting enemy henchmen and ninjas. Reaching the end of each level will find you battling it out with a boss. These range from 8ft tall giants to helicopter gunships.

In this run, V kills all the enemies that appear throughout the game, but doesn't try to respawn any of them to increase the kill count, because that would result in endlessly killing the same enemy.