Heavy Smash portrays a futuristic, armored, no-rules version of handball. The player is allowed to select one of various national teams (plus a robot team with a space station as home turf), some of them with an unique armor design reflecting some kind of perceived national tradition (a samurai armor for Japan and a sort of sci-fi football outfit or USA, for example) and some other being just palette swaps. Each team has a distinctive special shot, which has to be loaded up with a power gauge and each team member, in addition to tackling and roughing up opponents with no penalty whatsoever, can even perform a ranged attack in order to gain ball control. At its core, it's the typical “win or go home” coin-op sports game, with increasing difficulty and opponent skill each match.