Shinpi no Sekai: El-Hazard is based off of an anime with the same title. The game plays like an enhanced visual novel which is fully voice-acted and displays protagonist and other characters on the screen during dialogues. Event scenes and animations are quite common, and character poses depicting their current disposition is displayed in portrait images which are also animated. Unlike typical visual novels where the player is limited to dialogue and choices, players can explore various locations on the map and try to perform actions outside the dialogue window, such as initiating a talk to other characters, or look around the area or go someplace else.