Mighty Switch Force! is a side-scrolling platform shooter which puts the player in charge of cybernetic police officer Patricia Wagon who must re-capture a group of escaped convicts.
The player navigates each level by running, jumping and shooting at enemies, and can switch certain platforms from the background to the foreground and vice versa. These platforms can make parts of the level reachable and certain varieties can, for example, launch Patricia into the air. If there is someone, be it Patricia or an enemy, walking in the space of a platform when it is switched into the foreground, they will be crushed and, in Patricia's case, would have to go back to the start of the level. A level is lost when Patricia runs out of her three lives.