The game's setting takes place in the UGSF universe, which is the same universe in Galaxian, StarBlade, Ace Combat 3, Bounty Hounds and New Space Order. The game featured free-roaming open space exploration, a cockpit view where the cockpit controls could be seen (and where the cockpit bobs up and down), bases where the player can be refueled, a map and radar displaying the locations of enemies and bases, a warp ability that allows the player to be warped to anywhere on the map, and a date system keeping track of the current date which can change when warping long distances.

An enhanced version of it was later ported to the Sharp X68000. In 1998, the game was also included on a compilation made for the PlayStation known as Namco Anthology 1 where, like all of the Famicom games presented on the disc, an enhanced arrange mode was provided alongside the unaltered original game. The Famicom version was later included in the Japanese version of Nintendo's Star Fox Assault, and was ported to the Wii's Virtual Console in Japan on March 4, 2008.