As expected for the genre, the game pits your selected character against a series of opponents in best-of-three-round matches, with your objective being to deplete your opponent's health bar with your basic attacks, special moves (triggered by specific control motions) and super moves (which rely on a power gauge). All the characters in Ninja Master's fight with their weapon of choice, but you can freely choose to put your weapon away and go mano-a-mano. This does not have a major impact on speed or attack power, but changes the movesets significantly, even changing the way basic attacks work.