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Front Line

Arcade

Arcade

A vertical shoot-em-up using guns and grenades. Jump into light or heavily armored tanks to fight off the enemy tanks. Toss grenades into the fort to win the battle. You must move upward across enemy battlefields, killing the attacking enemy soldiers with your bullets or grenades while avoidin...

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Developer
Taito

Released on
1982

Size
1–2 Players

Version
Arcade

Requirements
Arcade

Downloads
Shooter

ESRB Rating
Not Rated

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Description

A vertical shoot-em-up using guns and grenades. Jump into light or heavily armored tanks to fight off the enemy tanks. Toss grenades into the fort to win the battle.

You must move upward across enemy battlefields, killing the attacking enemy soldiers with your bullets or grenades while avoiding land mines and big rocks. As you travel farther up, enemy soldiers will man their tanks either big or small and during this sequence, you can fling grenades to destroy these tanks or you can man your own tank big or small. Once you are in a tank, use the rotary to aim your turret and fire. Big tanks can destroy both big and small tanks, but small tanks can only destroy other small tanks. If your tank is hit just once, you must press the Grenade button to escape before it explodes. But if your tank is hit twice, you will be killed.
When you make it to the end of the enemy battlefield at the top of the screen, there will be the enemy fortress equipped with a cannon that can destroy whatever tank you are in as well as kill you. Here you must jump out of your tank if you are in one and toss a grenade directly onto the enemy fortress while avoiding the cannon’s line of fire. If you succeed in destroying the fortress, an injured enemy soldier will come up waving a white flag and the entire enemy army will surrender to you. Afterwards, you are rewarded a bonus and then the game begins again with increased difficulty.

Front Line

Overview & History

Released by Taito in 1982, Front Line is a pioneering military-themed run-and-gun arcade shooter that pre-dates massive hits like Ikari Warriors. Unlike standard static shooters of its era, this game features a dynamic, vertically scrolling battlefield where a lone, blue-clad infantry soldier must relentlessly push forward into enemy territory. Your ultimate objective is to infiltrate the heavily fortified enemy base, bypass a gauntlet of tanks and turrets, and ultimately destroy the enemy's massive fortress commander. Taito’s design brilliantly combined on-foot tactical infantry combat with high-speed vehicular warfare, establishing a new benchmark for strategic arcade action.

Gameplay Features & Mechanics

Gameplay alternates intensely between on-foot infiltration and armored combat. As the soldier, players utilize a dual-axis control scheme allowing you to move in one direction while firing independently, a revolutionary mechanic for 1982. Armed initially with a standard rifle and a limited supply of devastating grenades, players can clear bunkers and obstacles. However, the true turning point of any stage is capturing and piloting operational tanks or armored personnel carriers. Piloting a tank vastly increases your firepower with heavy cannon shells and grants extra armor against enemy fire, though the tank can be destroyed if it sustains too much damage, forcing you back onto the vulnerable front lines on foot.