Like many games for the hardware, Power Drift makes heavy use of sprite scaling and rotation, often referred to as Super Scaler technology. It is one of the more ambitious efforts for what is considered at its core to be 2D hardware, attempting not only to simulate driving down a road (like OutRun), but hills and bridges, as well as a camera which can tilt as the player drives around corners.

In Power Drift the player chooses one of twelve characters and attempts to beat them over the course of five courses, labeled A through E, each with five tracks. Unlike most Sega arcade racers which rely on an in-game timer to determine whether a user has failed, in Power Drift the player must finish third or above in a race to continue playing.

If the player finishes first in all races, a sixth special track is unlocked, where the player has the option to play as the F-14 Tomcat from After Burner (A, C, E) or the motorbike from Super Hang-On (B, D).