Front Attack

Front Attack (フロントアタック) is a Breakout clone arcade gamed developed by Forcefield and released on August 12, 1979. It runs on Forcefield Upu hardware and was the second video game developed by the company, after Galaxy Shot a year earlier in 1978. The game did not do very well in arcades as it only sold 10,000 units total in all regions. The game is notable for being the first game designed by Hiroshi Nishikawa, who would later develop StarCore, Soldier Force and the Pulse series. The game received a follow-up in 1982, aptly titled Front Attack ‘82, which improved the game’s graphics, and a spin-off title, Attack Battalion, was released nearly a decade later in 1994.

Gameplay
The player controls a large paddle towards the bottom of the screen, and must deflect a white ball while destroying the enemy tanks, submarines and planes in a limited amount of time. The player uses the dial on the control panel to move the paddle and must press the button to serve the ball once the game begins. If the player loses the ball and falls off-screen, then a life will be lost; and if all lives are lost, then the game will be over; the game will also be over if the time limit hits zero, regardless how many lives the player has.

Ports and related releases
A sequel game was released in February 1982 titled Front Attack ‘82; it runs on Forcefield Kapa hardware and greatly improves the game’s graphics and sound, as well as adding the addition of a time-stop power up, which is self-explanatory.

A spin-off title was released more than 10 years after the sequel in 1994, titled Attack Battalion. The game ditches the Breakout-style of gameplay in favor of a single-screen shoot em up; the games rotates between a land, water and air stage and the player must destroy all of the enemy tanks, submarines and planes respectively.

The original Front Attack was ported to the Sega Saturn in 1995 as part of the Forcefield Saturn Collection compilation that also included seven other Forcefield video games while ‘’Attack Battalion’’ was released as a bonus game in Forcefield Arcade Trainer for the Nintendo DS in 2010. All three games were later ported to the Forcefield Archives video game compilation for the Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2017.

Trivia
A minigame based on Front Attack was featured in Tsujin Paradise R in 1999.