While he seems to fight for sheer enjoyment, it is more likely he is battling simply because he lost his memory after death, since his brain couldn't regenerate. He carries a sword and shield, and has the ability to teleport and physically morph himself into a grayscale version of his opponents during combos. He has an odd quirk in that, in order to perform certain moves, he must gather energy (represented by tokens shaped like skulls under his life bar in the SNES version, and by skulls floating around his person in the arcade and gold versions) by either absorbing opponents projectile energy attacks (with his shield in absorbing position), or performing combo breakers.
Despite requiring these tokens, his special moves are not particularly stronger than normal special attacks. He can "store" up to 5 skull tokens, to the point of "overloading" if he absorbs any more energy. He uses two No Mercy moves, one where he repeatedly stabs the enemy with a spike on his shield, and the other where he summons a skeleton to drag the opponent underground, presumably to Hell. In the SNES version, the second No Mercy is replaced with Spinal summoning a bolt of lightning.
