Road Spirits is an arcade-style racing game, similar to Rad Racer. The player controls a car from an "into the screen" 3rd person perspective, racing through the 17 pseudo-3D courses (named after various geographical locations, e.g. "West Coast" etc.). There are other cars on the road, which can slow down the player-controlled car by colliding with it, but the race is against time rather than against these cars. The player is given a time limit for each course, and an indicator shows how close the car is to the completion. Should the car run out of time, the race is lost, and the player has to replay it before tackling the next one.

The car can be controlled with two buttons only; collisions do not damage the car, but merely make it stop; though the player can change a car model and gear system, no realistic gear-based driving is used in the game. All this contribute to the overall arcade feeling of the races.