The game features Princess Kurumi (くるみ姫 Kurumi-Hime), the titular female ninja, battling enemies using throwing knives and shurikens.

[6][8] The game is set during Japan's Edo period, in about the year 1630, in a province called Ohkami in the western region, where the power has been seized by an evil tyrant named Gyokuro.

[8] Other changes include the rearranging of stages from the original Japanese release in western releases of the game as well as a scroll system, which requires the player to collect five green scrolls in order to get to the final level of the game, as all of them give hints on how the final level must be entered.

In Japan, Game Machine listed Ninja Princess on their May 1, 1985 issue as being the most-successful table arcade cabinet of the month.

While he considered Commando to be a refinement of Taito's Front Line (1982), he said that Ninja Princess brought "a fresh setting and interesting new elements."