Burning Force is a shoot'em up. It was originally developed by Namco for the arcades. The game was ported to the Mega Drive / Genesis by Nova and published by Namco (in North America and Japan), Sega (in Europe) and Brazilian company Tec Toy (in Brazil).

You play Hiromi Tengenji, a 21-year-old cadet who must pass a six-day final examination of fighting enemies over water to become a Space Fighter Pilot. She pilots a futuristic hover bike called the Sign Duck. The sign Duck can also be upgraded to a small fighter craft.

Burning Force is derived from Space Harrier. You control Hiromi on her hover bike from a 3rd person view. The hover bike cannot fly, so you can only go left and right. You can increase and decrease your speed, and there are sometimes device which make your bike jump when run over them. You can collect coloured balls which give you different weapons. If you loose a life, you get set back to your standard weapon. You can take two hits before losing a life. There is a limited amount of homing missiles you can fire, and you can find new missiles and missile upgrades in the levels. Some obstacles in your way can be destroy and will sometimes leave green pods behind. If collect five pods, you can push a button to become invincible for a short time.