Sanrio World Smash Ball-likes (and other fictional sports)

[Natalie]

Recently I finally got to try Sanrio World Smash Ball - a game I first saw championed here many years ago - and I was surprised by two things. First, the absolute similarity on every level to the following year's Heisei Inu Monogatari: Bow Pop'n Smash, which shamelessly lifts its core concepts, but secondly and more significantly that Bow Pop'n Smash just... does it better. The level design is less restrictive, allowing fuller movement, and also much less prone to obnoxious collisions off angled surfaces. The conveyance of the animations gives you a better sense of which direction the characters are swinging and where the ball is about to go. It has music. Despite being a clone, Bow feels pretty high effort and takes steps to evolve the game design, and it got me wondering whether there were other games that borrowed the Sanrio Smash formula.

More generally, it made me interested in the broader microgenre of "video game sports games," competitive games played between two or more players that aren't fighting or puzzle games and don't meaningfully resemble any real world sport or contest. Does anyone have recommendations that fall under that umbrella?

[excelsior]

Numan Athletics and its sequel Mach Breakers are Track N Field style games that feature athletic contests between super heroes. Some games resemble real world events more than others. Some more out there events include trying to stop a train with your bare hands and dragging a Godzillaesque monster through a city, destroying buildings as you go.

[excelsior]

Since you haven't had any more answers (come on guys, surely we can think of something that fits here?) I'll add a couple more coming from various angles. I think that you won't find many that don't bear resemblance whilst still being portrayed as a sports title. We have many multiplayer based games that offer competitive aspects, but they're generally not portrayed in game as being a sporting event.

From the perspective of games that operate as sports within the setting of the game world we have something like Pokemon, with battles being set in sporting stadiums surrounded by fans. I played Shadowverse: Champions Battle which copied that series approach within its game world, the interesting thing there is that's it's a TCG and therefore can be played in real life - though we wouldn't consider it a sport.

Games that more closely resemble real sports and are clearly based upon them such as Rocket League pop up here and there.

One that I think fits more closely for this thread are Ubisoft's recent Roller Champions. I'm not entirely sure how it works, but there's a ball game in there of sorts.

There's also the Sonic Riders series. A racing game of sorts, but far from traditional. It is presented with an extreme sports approach including skateboardesque tricks and grinding.

You may also want to look into mini-game collections, such as Mario Party for this style of game. I think some events could fit.

[dsparil]

Isn't Sanrio World Small Ball basically one on one soccer? There's a fair amount of soccer-ish games. For some reason mostly computer related games are coming to mind like Speedball 2, HyperBlade, and the Rocket Ball mode in Rocket Jockey. Metroid Prime: Federation Force had the Blast Ball mode.

Outside of that, there's Caveman Ugh-Lympics which is basically what it sounds like. It's old enough that the Commodore 64 version is the best regarded. There is an NES port, but I haven't played it and the reviews of it are poor. SNK's Paddle Mania is a quirky take on tennis.

[chronotigger65]

Does Blitz Ball from Final Fantasy 10 count?

[Woody Alien 2]

Would Penguin-kun Wars count? Animals throwing balls at each other, set up as a tournament.