Destination Earth includes nine stages, each consisting of several "waves" of alien attackers and bonus waves. Most of the stages are planetary locations, like an Ancient Egyptianish Mars, Metropolitan Earth, and Saturn. Some are non-planet astronomical objects like the moon or the sun. On the final stage, the player finds must battle on a "planetoid". The "waves" consist of three preset views denoted as ALPHA (1st person), DELTA (side scroller), and GAMMA (top view or original Galaga view).
If a tractor beam ship is destroyed, there is a chance that a cube will come out. If the player catches this cube, they will get a temporary tractor beam that can capture an enemy ship. Captured enemy ships will then act as wing-men for your fighter until destroyed by enemy fire, just as they do in Gaplus.