Typically, for an Ultimate release, the inlay card provides little actual instruction for playing the game, but includes a cryptic short story as an introduction.

The basic gameplay is the same as that of Sabreman's previous outing Knight Lore (without that game's day/night shapeshifting cycle), as he wanders a mazelike system of screens filled with enemies, pieces of movable scenery (often forming obstacles or puzzles), and exits on one or more walls, sometimes high up and difficult to reach.

Pentagram features larger numbers of enemies than either Knight Lore or Alien 8, due to Sabreman's newfound ability to kill them.

These harmless but frequently annoying foes will gravitate toward Sabreman and hover around him disrupting his movement (and sometimes even nudging him off platforms) until they are destroyed.

When an enemy is destroyed by use of Sabreman's new magic fireball spell, another will drop in from the top of the screen to replace it after a short while, this happening much faster the further into the game the player progresses.

As with the previous two Filmation games, enemies may interact with scenery in a very basic way, shoving any movable objects (such as logs and tables) along when they bump into them.

In terms of gameplay and features Pentagram was the most advanced of the Filmation titles, but some sections of the gaming press were becoming tired of the concept and accused Ultimate of unoriginality.