the game is divided into four difficulties. as difficulty increases, more enemies appear per stage; on hardest, joe takes twice as much damage and the number of starting lives decreases from 10 to 1. from the options menu, the player can also choose the number of starting shuriken from 0 to 90 (though a technique does exist that allows infinite shuriken). the game has two different endings, depending on whether joe rescues his bride or not.