For those not really into sports games, what are the best arcadey / unrealistic / simple team sports games for each sport?

[Why would you do that?]

(To be clear, by "sports", I mean ones where a player or a team faces off against another on a court or field. I'm also counting Golf for some reason. I don't mean sports like racing, snowboarding, biking, running, etc.)


I'm not a sports fan, but when I was growing up, I sometimes played a few, mostly SNES games like NBA Live, NBA Jam, and Madden. Over time I fell off of the genre, though, but every once in a while I get in the mood to try to play a modern sports game. Unfortunately, when I do try playing a modern Madden or NBA 2K game, I usually end up feeling overwhelmed and don't really get far with them. I just chalk it up to not really being into sports games.

But I just watched a video on an NFL Blitz game on N64, and I'm in the mood to try some sports games out again. But this time, I'd like to specifically target the arcadey or simple ones, old or new. That said, there's a world of sports games out there that fit that description (especially older ones and/or Japanese-developed ones), and I'd like to hear some of your favorites, why you like them, and what makes them so good -- bonus points if you're also in general not a sports fan.


To kick things off, here are a few games I've played, heard of, and/or would particularly like to know more about:

Basketball:

• NBA Jam from Midway is one of my all-time favorite games, one I'd love to own an arcade cabinet of someday. I also recently played its sequel, NBA Hangtime, and it's basically the same game.
• NBA Street from Electronic Arts I've never played, but I know it has a ton of fans, many of whom say it's better than NBA Jam.

(American) Football:

• Tecmo Bowl and Tecmo Super Bowl on NES are very fast, very fun, and have amazing music. Apparently there are also Tecmo Bowl arcade games + 16 bit games, but I don't know if they're any good.
• NFL Blitz from Midway I learned today wasn't just one arcade game, but a whole series, culminating in Blitz: The League, an M-rated game not licensed by the NFL. Are the later games any good?

Baseball:

• The Jikkyo Powerful Pro Baseball series from Konami I'm very interested in. It's a long running series that's mostly stayed in Japan, but they recently released one in English on the Switch, and there's one in English on the Wii as well; are they any good?
• The Family Stadium series from Namco is also very long running, and I've similarly heard great things about it.
• Baseball Simulator 1,000 from Culture Brain on NES was recently ranked as one of the best NES games from Jeff Gerstmann in his NES games ranking, and he gushed even more about its SNES sequel.
• Ken Griffey Jr. from Rare on SNES I recently watched a playthrough of, and it actually looked fast-paced and fun.

Hockey:

• Ice Hockey from Nintendo on NES is one of my favorite sports games. It's fast, fun, and a great distillation of the sport.
• Blades of Steel from Konami on NES is also a really fun time.
• Many earlier NHL games from Electronic Arts also seem to have its fans, with the early games in particular receiving love for being fun and arcadey. Which ones are best in that sense? I do own NHL 99 on N64 and while I barely played it, I did find it to be pretty fun in an arcadey way.

There are other sports as well that I am not posting about, e.g. Tennis, Soccer, Golf, etc. that I know have lots of great games, feel free to mention those as well.


I was also thinking about what specifically I like about these kind of games, and here are a few things that I think I like about them:

• Fast-paced, even if the sport itself is slow. I find baseball and golf to be slow and boring in real life, but a fast-paced baseball or golf video game can feel very fun.
• High energy, even if it's unrealistic. E.g. NBA Jam or NFL Blitz with Turbo controls and pushing / shoving mechanics that really fill the game with energy. Not implementing every rule of the sport also helps.
• Fairly simple controls and just enough options. E.g. for basketball, pass/shoot or steal/block is just enough to make for a fun and compelling game. Or in football, making it fast and easy to choose one of only a handful of plays really helps.
• Background music! IMO it really helps -- even if the game is mediocre, some backing music can really elevate it. Bonus points if it's a banger like Tecmo Bowl.

So, now that I've listed these games, I'd love to hear about some of the ones that everyone else really loves. I feel like these games aren't really discussed very much, and I'd be happy to see some discussion on these kind of sports games.



As a bonus, to get eveyone into the mood, here are a few pieces of music from some sports games:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kxv3YUicQ8

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTaM-BM_KrE

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL8QEF7cPwU

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhTrmpztRH4

 

[medli]

This may be pushing the definition of what you're talking about but the Inazuma Eleven games are fun as hell if you like JRPGs and football (soccer).

 

[Lobster Roll]

NBA Hangtime for N64 is the far and away the best basketball game. It's got that arcade feel of Jam and Showtime, but the animations and hitboxes make it so that defense is far more important to each game. If there are four skilled players playing 2v2, you're going to get a decent number of shot clock violations when the defense is locked down.

Street Vol. 2 is excellent as well, but I found it super easy to cheese game breakers.

 

[Shiz Padoo]

New Star GP for F1 racing. Circuit Superstars for a bit of everything.

 

[dipship31]

It's a more fictional sports type game, but I do still feel like Rocket League is the best playing "sports" video game ever made.


View: https://youtu.be/BQ3ev1eS24c?si=HxwogLCMX6RjaQoG

 

[cosmickosm]

Super Mega Baseball 4

It straddles a line between arcade and sim. There's an adjustable difficulty level between 1-99 so you can fine tune to your preference. You can even get a bit more granular and adjust the difficulty of the pitching, batting, base running, and catching individually.

It's easy to pick up and play and has plenty of options to further enhance the experience (namely a shuffle draft and franchise mode).

The art style might put some people off but despite that, I think the game is one of the greatest sports games out there. I'm not a fan of MLB The Show or any of the major sports titles out there since yeah, they're "too" sim for me. But the SMB series gives me exactly what I'm looking for in a sports game.

 

[rsfour]

There hasn't been a good chel game since 94.

 

[ArcticWolf]

Very old but the Mutant League games were great for this.

Mutant League Football

Mutant League Hockey

For something more modern there's the Bloodbowl games but I haven't personally tried the videogame entries only the turn based table top one.


View: https://store.steampowered.com/app/236690/Blood_Bowl_2/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIz7a5jLO_gwMVPElHAR3H7Q-uEAAYASAAEgKxq_D_BwE

 

[GlitchyDegree]

NBA Street Vol. 2 will always be the king of basketball games, but NBA Ballers is a great alternative. I spent hours playing both Vol 2 and Ballers in rotation back in the day.

View: https://youtu.be/yB5bOgebqbU?si=llD7ZtTCW5a8KibU

The MLB Slugfest series is awesome! My and friends have zero interest in baseball, yet had a blast with these games.

View: https://youtu.be/toPVLYxjCIs?si=o-L2nmXpaicDsfRF

 

[Seik]

NFL Blitz and NHL Hitz games, pure fun, both series.

 

[writhingcorpse897]

I used to play NBA Jam on the genesis all night long during summer breaks as a kid. It's what got me into basketball at an early age.

 

[Blent]

Super Mega Baseball 4

It straddles a line between arcade and sim. There's an adjustable difficulty level between 1-99 so you can fine tune to your preference. You can even get a bit more granular and adjust the difficulty of the pitching, batting, base running, and catching individually.

It's easy to pick up and play and has plenty of options to further enhance the experience (namely a shuffle draft and franchise mode).

The art style might put some people off but despite that, I think the game is one of the greatest sports games out there. I'm not a fan of MLB The Show or any of the major sports titles out there since yeah, they're "too" sim for me. But the SMB series gives me exactly what I'm looking for in a sports game.

Click to shrink...

SMB was how I learned about what baseball is as a Brit. Its brilliant.

And sadly made me realise how cricket could never translate to a game as well as baseball does.

 

[Draysoth]

Baseball Stars on NES was the best baseball game on it, bar none.

 

[Fudus]

Doesn't fit your description of arcadey, simple or unrealistic but even as a someone only mildly interested in sports I still have had periods where I was super addicted to Football Manager. Simply because I like in-depth strategy and management games and Football Manager fits the bill there.
So anyone else who likes Paradox games or similarly complex strategy/management stuff might also really like FM even if they have no interest in football.

 

[Rygar 8Bit]

Sega Tennis 2k2 (aka Virtua Tennis 2)

Also outside of Blitz I like Mutant League for Football

Bonus Frolf sport game:

 

[Blake the drunk]

Blitz the league is fun! wish they would do a modern version. would buy day 1 easily.

NBA jam amazing, same with NBA street, NFL street, FIFA street

 

[drzzrd]

If you're into classic hockey games you have to try Tape to Tape! Feels a lot like NHL 94.

Tape to Tape on Steam

Tape to Tape is a roguelite hockey game where every choice matters on your journey to build the best hockey team. Choose your path, hire unique players, discover synergies between them, pick unique abilities, bribe the referees or visit the Blademaster on your way to restore hockey's former glory.

store.steampowered.com

 

[JuniperAndSage]

Everyone should play Pyre. Especially since it's currently 75% off.

View: https://store.steampowered.com/app/462770/Pyre/

 

[Junior Asparagus]

For hockey, there was NHL Open Ice in the arcades, and the NHL Hitz and Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey series for consoles. They were all NBA Jam-style takes on hockey that were really fun IMO.

The Mutant League games come to mind as well, as others have mentioned.

Ken Griffey Jr. from Rare on SNES I recently watched a playthrough of, and it actually looked fast-paced and fun.

Click to shrink...

I personally think the first one (not by Rare) is one of my favorite console baseball games of the era. I didn't like the Rare sequel (Winning Run) as much.

 

[Pirateluigi]

Sega Soccer Slam is the all around king.
I would do anything for a remake / sequel.

Other great ones:
Basketball: NBA Street Vol 2
Golf: Mario Golf Toadstool Tour
Hockey: NHL 94
Football: NFL Blitz

 

[KC-Slater]

Sega Soccer Slam is the all around king.
I would do anything for a remake / sequel.

Click to shrink...

Came here to post exactly this. Did this team make the Mario Soccer games?

 

[manelis]

Mario Strikers Charged is really good and I really don't like football.

Also, small offtopic to add to the first post, Mario Hoops and Mario Sports Mix soundtracks are so good because they are composed by Masayoshi Soken, which most people only associate with FF14.

 

[Iztok]

I haven't really played sports games since the 90s, outside of trying some out, but back then for me it was:

International Superstar Soccer (Deluxe, even 64/98)
Super Tennis (SNES) (it has Doubles, that's a team right?)
NHL on the Mega Drive (94 was the one I think)

and most importantly, and this is not a joke

Barkley's Shut up and Jam on the SNES

I know there's some "Gaiden" thing that bears this name but I don't know anything about those. I am however a true fan of this original game.

 

[Why would you do that?]

Thanks for all the suggestions! I looked up all the games I've not heard of. It really seems like Midway was the absolute king of this area during the PS1/PS2 era, with EA not being far behind with their Street series.

I'll definitely be checking out some of the games in this thread.

Mario Hoops and Mario Sports Mix soundtracks are so good because they are composed by Masayoshi Soken, which most people only associate with FF14.

Click to shrink...

Oh yeah, I always forget that Square Enix made not just Mario Hoops 3 on 3, but also Mario Sports Mix too. One of these days, I'll have to check out the soundtrack for that

 

[SuperOctopus]

Click to shrink...

Forgot about this one but I remember I was all over this game when I was younger.

 

[Giga Man]

Any Mario sports game (favorites include Mario Golf 64, Mario Tennis 64, Mario Power Tennis, Mario Tennis Aces, and Mario Strikers Charged) and Rocket League.

 

[megashock5]

I miss the EA Big line for this.

Speaking of which, SSX Tricky needs an HD remaster. Needs to happen.

 

[KeyChainDude]

On the lines of NBA Street, there is also FIFA Street for soccer. The PS2 games specifically were great.

 

[andymcc]

Baseball Stars on NES was the best baseball game on it, bar none.

Click to shrink...

The Neo-Geo games are excellent.

 

[The Omega Man]

NBA Jam needs to comeback, Basketball has never been so fun and accessible, everyone played NBA Jam back in the day regardless if they were into teal Basketball or not, for many it was what got them into real Basketball

 

[Grip]

The NHL Hitz games were my favorite sports games back in the day. Very simple, but fun and intuitive controls and as a hockey nerd I liked that I could customize players and their equipment 😁

 

[Stove]

Any version of Punch Out!

 

[ChitonIV]

(To be clear, by "sports", I mean ones where a player or a team faces off against another on a court or field. I'm also counting Golf for some reason. I don't mean sports like racing, snowboarding, biking, running, etc.)


I'm not a sports fan, but when I was growing up, I sometimes played a few, mostly SNES games like NBA Live, NBA Jam, and Madden. Over time I fell off of the genre, though, but every once in a while I get in the mood to try to play a modern sports game. Unfortunately, when I do try playing a modern Madden or NBA 2K game, I usually end up feeling overwhelmed and don't really get far with them. I just chalk it up to not really being into sports games.

But I just watched a video on an NFL Blitz game on N64, and I'm in the mood to try some sports games out again. But this time, I'd like to specifically target the arcadey or simple ones, old or new. That said, there's a world of sports games out there that fit that description (especially older ones and/or Japanese-developed ones), and I'd like to hear some of your favorites, why you like them, and what makes them so good -- bonus points if you're also in general not a sports fan.


To kick things off, here are a few games I've played, heard of, and/or would particularly like to know more about:

Basketball:

• NBA Jam from Midway is one of my all-time favorite games, one I'd love to own an arcade cabinet of someday. I also recently played its sequel, NBA Hangtime, and it's basically the same game.
• NBA Street from Electronic Arts I've never played, but I know it has a ton of fans, many of whom say it's better than NBA Jam.

(American) Football:

• Tecmo Bowl and Tecmo Super Bowl on NES are very fast, very fun, and have amazing music. Apparently there are also Tecmo Bowl arcade games + 16 bit games, but I don't know if they're any good.
• NFL Blitz from Midway I learned today wasn't just one arcade game, but a whole series, culminating in Blitz: The League, an M-rated game not licensed by the NFL. Are the later games any good?

Baseball:

• The Jikkyo Powerful Pro Baseball series from Konami I'm very interested in. It's a long running series that's mostly stayed in Japan, but they recently released one in English on the Switch, and there's one in English on the Wii as well; are they any good?
• The Family Stadium series from Namco is also very long running, and I've similarly heard great things about it.
• Baseball Simulator 1,000 from Culture Brain on NES was recently ranked as one of the best NES games from Jeff Gerstmann in his NES games ranking, and he gushed even more about its SNES sequel.
• Ken Griffey Jr. from Rare on SNES I recently watched a playthrough of, and it actually looked fast-paced and fun.

Hockey:

• Ice Hockey from Nintendo on NES is one of my favorite sports games. It's fast, fun, and a great distillation of the sport.
• Blades of Steel from Konami on NES is also a really fun time.
• Many earlier NHL games from Electronic Arts also seem to have its fans, with the early games in particular receiving love for being fun and arcadey. Which ones are best in that sense? I do own NHL 99 on N64 and while I barely played it, I did find it to be pretty fun in an arcadey way.

There are other sports as well that I am not posting about, e.g. Tennis, Soccer, Golf, etc. that I know have lots of great games, feel free to mention those as well.


I was also thinking about what specifically I like about these kind of games, and here are a few things that I think I like about them:

• Fast-paced, even if the sport itself is slow. I find baseball and golf to be slow and boring in real life, but a fast-paced baseball or golf video game can feel very fun.
• High energy, even if it's unrealistic. E.g. NBA Jam or NFL Blitz with Turbo controls and pushing / shoving mechanics that really fill the game with energy. Not implementing every rule of the sport also helps.
• Fairly simple controls and just enough options. E.g. for basketball, pass/shoot or steal/block is just enough to make for a fun and compelling game. Or in football, making it fast and easy to choose one of only a handful of plays really helps.
• Background music! IMO it really helps -- even if the game is mediocre, some backing music can really elevate it. Bonus points if it's a banger like Tecmo Bowl.

So, now that I've listed these games, I'd love to hear about some of the ones that everyone else really loves. I feel like these games aren't really discussed very much, and I'd be happy to see some discussion on these kind of sports games.



As a bonus, to get eveyone into the mood, here are a few pieces of music from some sports games:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kxv3YUicQ8

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTaM-BM_KrE

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL8QEF7cPwU

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhTrmpztRH4

Click to shrink...

I bought this for PSOne, due to PSM's very positive review. I had a lot of fun with it.
5 on 5 football. Couple of loose rules. And a teensy bit of Blitz influence, sprinkled in.

NFL Xtreme - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[ChitonIV]

NBA Jam needs to comeback, Basketball has never been so fun and accessible, everyone played NBA Jam back in the day regardless if they were into teal Basketball or not, for many it was what got them into real Basketball

Click to shrink...

"HE'S ON FIRE" is iconic!


Another game to look out for is Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League baseball.

And the follow up, Ken Griffey Jr's Winning Run.

They actually aren't 'extreme' baseball games. Rather, they are pretty serious about the sport. However, it's a really slick package, graphics with personality, and feels really well to play.

"If you own a Super NES and even just kind of like baseball, then this is the one."[5] IGN

 

[mclem]

Taking it to a massive extreme, here, but I loved this:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nluKR1wu9m4

 

[KernelZee]

Very old but the Mutant League games were great for this.

Mutant League Football

Mutant League Hockey

For something more modern there's the Bloodbowl games but I haven't personally tried the videogame entries only the turn based table top one.


View: https://store.steampowered.com/app/236690/Blood_Bowl_2/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIz7a5jLO_gwMVPElHAR3H7Q-uEAAYASAAEgKxq_D_BwE

Click to shrink...

There is this on steam, altho it plays more like Blitz.

Mutant Football League on Steam

Mutants and monsters unleash maniacal carnage on the gridiron in this crazy gore fest of arcade-style football. Packed full of humor, intense online multiplayer action, and strategy.

store.steampowered.com

3 bucks right now

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

 

[Rygar 8Bit]

There is this on steam, altho it plays more like Blitz.

Mutant Football League on Steam

Mutants and monsters unleash maniacal carnage on the gridiron in this crazy gore fest of arcade-style football. Packed full of humor, intense online multiplayer action, and strategy.

store.steampowered.com

3 bucks right now

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

Click to shrink...

They're made by the original Mutant League creator and have commentary by Tim Kitzrow the Jam and Blitz announcer. Game is great, it's got some jank to it, but it's still great.

 

[World B. SkiFree]

Some great mentions in the OP and by others.

NES Super Tecmo Bowl is my favorite game. For the last few months, I've been playing a season every 1-2 weeks. Also play my brother in SNES Tecmo Bowl 2 SE; very good game but nothing beats the original. Just a great mix of quick, arcade play but enough nuance and strategy to keep it interesting.

I personally think the first one (not by Rare) is one of my favorite console baseball games of the era. I didn't like the Rare sequel (Winning Run) as much.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, original Ken Griffey is an all time classic, probably my favorite video baseball game although Bad News Baseball on the NES is working its way up.

Any Mario sports game (favorites include Mario Golf 64, Mario Tennis 64, Mario Power Tennis, Mario Tennis Aces, and Mario Strikers Charged)

Click to shrink...

Agreed. Been playing a lot of Mario Golf/Tennis 64 via NSO, great stuff. The Strikers games are all very fun, too.

3DS versions of Mario Golf/Tennis rank very high for me. Also really like Mario Sports Superstars; if you are just into tournament-style competitions in your Mario sports games vs. the RPG-centric pieces, definitely worth checking out.

Edit: Forgot about hockey. NES Ice Hockey is also one of my favorites. NHL games on Genesis and Hitz games on later gens are also tops. Some great, arcade hockey options.

Noticed Super Spike V'ball mentioned, a top ten NES game for me. So fun and very replayable. Beach Spikers on GameCube is also very good.

Honorable mentions to Mario/Sonic Olympic Games. Really got into the non-Mario/Sonic version for 2020 games. A ton of arcade games in the mix, some of them team sports (Rugby, soccer, basketball, baseball, volleyball).

 

[The Awesomest]

How do you feel about sports RPGs, OP? Because I've been playing through Dodgeball Academia and it's great.

 

[Elf Needs Food Bad]

I loved Baseball Stars on NES and Neo Geo, NFL Blitz in the arcade, and Tecmo Bowl on NES. NBA Jams if course. Mutant League Football
Hot Shots Golf. Super Spike V ball. T&C surf

 

[Dunfish]

Pete Sampras Extreme Tennis - only released in PAL territories but it absolutely rips

 

[Junior Asparagus]

How do you feel about sports RPGs, OP? Because I've been playing through Dodgeball Academia and it's great.

Click to shrink...

Oh I forgot about this one. Super Dodgeball on NES was one of my faves. Maybe I'll check this out...

 

[The Albatross]

Got some recommends coming tomorrow, not on a keyboard.

 

[Caeda]

I'm very fond of Hot Shots Tennis and Everybody's Golf.

 

[exodus]

Golf Story, while not fast paced, is stellar.

 

[Kapryov]

I have always loved NBA Jam. It's been quite a few years since I played it, but I remember it being being easy to pick up and play, it's such a great game.
They need to figure out a way to re-release it somehow. I'm sure it can be done with a few edits, surely.

 

[idolminds]

Windjammers should definitely be mentioned here even if its not a real sport.

 

[RaySpencer]

Rocket League is the best sport game.

It's simple if all of you are new/bad, and insane once you get good. It's like the most accurate representation of learning to play a sport in any video game ever. It's nuts.

 

[Hambulance]

DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball

 

[The Albatross]

NBA Street, especially NBA Street Vol 2, is a much better, deeper, more strategic game than NBA Jam, but just as easy to pick up and play. A problem with NBA Jam and Blitz is generally how arbitrary and scripted they are, with poorly hidden rubber banding. They were very fun at the time but there's no depth to them. NBA Street Vol 2 is arguably the greatest sports game ever made, likely the greatest licensed sports game ever, and it has mechanics that borrow from other genres of games, like building up a combo meter similar to a fighting game, which unleashes devastating specials. There's a genuine strategy around this, where you build up your specials to use yourself but also to counter your opponents special, it's just really well done. It has an excellent single player story mode / path which takes you from a street ball tournament up through the history of street ball with players who are amalgamations of famous/iconic street ball archetypes, blending in with the influx of street ball-like players into the ABA and eventually NBA.

NBA Street Vol 2 is both the best arcade sports game and one of the best sports games in general.

Rocket League is genuinely one of the greatest sports games ever made, and it is a sports game, and so it's hard to put a lot of games above it because of the level of success the game has achieved. The thing Rocket League lacks that every other great sports game has is a single player/campaign/etc mode, sure it has bot battles and a training mode for single player, but it's not a single player game, so comparing it to a sports game that has excellent multiplayer and rewarding single player like NBA Street Vol 2, you have to discount Rocket League for that. It's like saying Tarkov is the best shooter ever. Yes, very high skill ramp, insanely deep multiplayer gameplay, but it's hard to say that Tarkov is better than Resident Evil 4, Half-Life 2, Modern Warfare, or Halo 2. Rocket League is one of the best sports games ever, but it's lack of any single player mode -- a hallmark of all great sports games -- is tough to rank it above games that have both excellent single player and excellent multiplayer.

NFL Blitz has the same problem as NBA Jam. They're arbitrary and not very strategic games. There's really not a wider strategy for a game of NFL Blitz or NBA Jam. I don't know a lot of about fighting games but it'd be like a fighting game that gets the simple act of punching and kicking, and it does those in a very satisfying, fun way, but there's no wider strategy to the fight or depth to the game. Both games are arbitrary and scripted in a way that sports games, even arcade sports games, really shouldn't be. If you win round 1 in a fighting game, it's not fun for either player if player 2 is scripted to win round 2, and then round 3 is a toss up. Like, if one players punches become more powerful, the other players blocks stop working, it's just not satisfying to have arbitrary systems like that beyond a few matches.

Baseball: Super Mega Baseball series, and all of them are good, but the latest is the best, Super Mega Baseball 4, but 1 and 3 probably made the biggest splash. It's a game that is extremely easy to pick up and play and understand instantly, but to master it is ... genuinely ... like ... people put thousands of hours into beating the CPU at the highest levels. It's a game that can scale its difficulty almost infinitely. I've probably put 100+ hours into the series since it first launched, and I'm barely playing over ~60 difficulty level (out of 100, you can tune various settings but that's generally where I land). It's very satisfying to play game to game and also has a fun franchise/season/etc mode. Aside from Rocket League, Super Mega Baseball is the best modern sports game, arcade or sim.

MVP Baseball 2004/2005 is a sim sports baseball game, but it's very quick to pick up and play and satisfying. They basically nailed the game with '05, probably the best baseball game ever in terms of a really good mix of pick up and play satisfaction with a deep, satisfying franchise mode that can be played simply or with a lot of depth. MLB The Show has more depth these days and the difficulty can be exponentially higher than MVP (the pitching is too easy in MVP, especially), but MLB the Show has kinda languished without competition in the last few years and hasn't really made the leaps that it made year over year a decade ago. MLB The Show is very sim.

One of the original MLB Slugfests was also good, I can't remember which one.

Football: Tough to put an arcade football game anywhere near the top, most aren't good. NFL Street is better than NFL Blitz, but neither are great. The most "arcade" football game that is good is probably Madden '06 for PS2/Xbox. It's a sim sports game for the time but was more arcadey than NFL 2K5, and has a genuinely great franchise mode and fun multiplayer (though the online multiplayer has been gone for some time now). NFL/College football is hard to make into a satisfying arcade style game, you either need to simplify the sport so much that it's not fun, or take other liberties to just make it crazy ... Mutant League or Backbreaker, for instance.

RetroBowl for iPad/iOS/Android is very good and fun, though it's not very deep. It's well worth the price for $2 for the full unlock, a great value game that is still a lot of fun to play. Has a satisfying single player franchise/season mode, but after 2-3 seasons you've seen everything there is to see and you've probably maxed your team out without any armies left to conquer. Really good game though, one of the better modern sports games.

Hockey: The classic hockey games on SNES & Genesis, NHL '95 or 06 by EA. These were sim hockey games at the time that are retro and arcadey now, great games. Some critical flaws in that they're extremely easy to get goals in once you figure out the AI goalies. NHL Hitz is better than NBA Jam and NFL Blitz, because hockey just naturally works as an arcade game. Most of the NHL games by EA can be turned into arcade style games with 3 on 3, no rules, high impact hits, and they're all very good. Although for the last 6 or 7 years, EA has killed the game by focusing on microtransactions, like all major licensed sports games.

Shoutout also to pro wrestling games, which should properly be thought of as sports games. WWF No Mercy and the early PS2 Smackdowns are great arcade sports games, they have everything that an arcade sports game should have ... an ability to easily pick up and play it and make an impact, but a level of deeper gameplay and match-long strategy that feels satisfying to understand.

For tennis, all the greats have been mentioned, but a dark horse is Rockstar Table Tennis. I dunno if it's properly an arcade sports game, but it's easy to pick up and play with great balanced gameplay and a lot of depth.