Players navigate Goemon through forests, fields, dungeons, and other three-dimensional models of medieval Japanese places. Goemon and his friends can walk or run, jump, attack, and use special abilities to cross terrain, pick up money, and defeat adversaries. Players control only one of four characters at a time but can cycle through them with the press of a button. Hearts at the bottom of the screen show a character's health. If hit by an enemy and damage is taken, a character loses a heart. Some items and acts replenish strength, and a Maneki Neko adds a heart to the overall health. If all hearts are lost, the player restarts at the entrance to the field map they died in and the player's number of lives declines by one.