Cho Ren Sha 68K is a vertical scrolling shoot 'em up in which the player takes control of an unnamed spaceship to fight against a horde of enemy spacecraft on a giant and seemingly endless ring-shaped space station. The game features a loop system whereby after defeating the last boss of stage 0 in loops 1, 3, 5 and 7 the player starts at the beginning of stage 1 with an increase on the game's difficulty level. The game features a total of seven stages and eight loops in total.