Underexposed shooters - Episode 1 - Apidya

I like bullet-hell shooters. I don't claim to be particularly good at them, I'd never have completed Ikaruga or Radiant Silvergun on a single credit, but nevertheless there's something extremely exciting about beating the odds for another split second as you try desperately to thread yourself through bright neon coloured globes of death.

Now, I've played a lot of games in my life and there's one or two shooters that never seem to get the credit they deserve. These types of game have always been more popular in Japan, which is perhaps why the pseudo Japanese yet German developed Apidya, released on the Amiga, never seems to get the respect or attention it deserves. It's not like there aren't lots of good shooters on the Amiga, but people tend to think of games like Blood Money, Agony or Project X when they think of classic Amiga shooters. Weirdly, Apidya seems to be often forgotten, even amongst people who were hardcore Amiga players back in the day.

Well, I am here today to tell you that if you love shooters, particularly horizontally scrolling shooters in the vein of Gradius, then you really must not miss Apidya. The games lead character is turned into a Bee (though the sprite always looked more like a wasp to me) in order to obtain an antidote for his girlfriend who's been attacked by the evil Hexaae's poisonous insects. Starting off in meadows edge, you'll be fighting your way past hordes of all kinds of creepy crawlies, as well as angry moles, a praying mantis, a huge screen filling fish (who's insides you can explore after killing him) as well as the more gruesome maggots who spring from the corpse of a dead rat.

The game is not only imaginative, it's also beautifully drawn and presented. Like most 2D shooters, visually it hasn't aged as badly as many of the early 3D shooters. Game-play wise there's little to fault, the theme of Bee vs other insect and animal life keeps the game feeling fresh, though only the most skilled players will make it past level 4 and through the boss-rush that follows. There's also some neat bonus levels to find too.

What most players remember from this game however is the soundtrack. Playing Apidya will certainly remind you just how completely ear shatteringly awesome the Amiga's sound chip was, especially compared to most other systems (Sega Megadrive, Atari ST) from around that era. Chris Hülsbeck's music is beautiful and lively throughout and fits in perfectly to the game.

This is one shooter you really must track down, it works just fine on UAE. Use your scaler of choice and set Cycle Exact mode to ON and sound emulated 100% accurate for best results. Set NTSC mode too for slightly faster game-play. Easily one of the best shooters on the Amiga, if you've not played it, buzz off and find a copy pronto.

The good - Presentation is fantastic, graphics are great, game-play is challenging and exciting, soundtrack is phenomenal

The bad - Death steals lots your weapons, if you're not some sort of shoot-em-up genius then on later levels you might find that dying once makes the odds of getting past the level just too high.

 Check out this Apidya fan site if you want to find out more about the game - http://www.avians.net/~hawthorn/apidya/