You play through the game as the bulbous nosed Gaou. When Gaou was born, his father tried to hold him while climbing a mountain, but he lost his grip and fell to the earth below, killing him, and costing Gaou one eye and one arm. He was tormented for being different throughout his childhood, and he came to despise humanity, and loved nature. He would steal from other people, and kill them if necessary without a second thought to survive. One day he would encounter a monk who would begin to teach him that by witnessing the ugliest aspects of humanity, he alone could obtain an appreciation for life that no one else was capable of. The monk also taught him how to tap into his innate talents for sculpting faces and gargoyles with intense emotional expressions.

The game loosely depicts Gaou's journey to locate the Phoenix, but it does so by having Gaou travel through a variety of locations, and even through different time periods, in an effort to collect 16 cards which, when assembled, form the image of the Phoenix and releases her into the world. To complete his quest, Gaou must traverse each stage and collect the card found at the very end. Sometimes he must defeat a stage boss first before he can collect the card. He has a chisel at his disposal which he can use as a weapon against his enemies. Gaou also has a health meter, displayed in the upper left corner of the screen. He will lose a life if he receives enough damage to empty his health meter, if he falls below the bottom of the screen, or if he runs out of the time provided to complete the stage.