We first reported on Apidya’ Special upon its announcement over a year ago, and we’ve been keeping tabs in its progress ever since.
The original Apidya’ was first released for the 16-bit Commodore Amiga home computer way back in 1993. At the time, the format was facing increasingly stiff competition from the Japanese consoles of the day, such as the SNES, Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, and for those with deep pockets, SNK’s Neo Geo, and Apidya’ was a clear attempt to create an all-new Japanese console-style side-scrolling arcade shoot ‘em up for the Amiga, and, perhaps surprisingly, it worked, with Apidya’ arguably becoming one of the two very best side-scrolling shoot ‘em ups to be released for the Amiga, along with Team 17’s Project X, which itself received a modern sequel last year, in the form of Project X: Light Years.
One of the things that made Apidya’ stand out was its unusual setting, rather than piloting a spaceship flying through a starfield, in Apidya’, you take control of a bee flying through a garden, taking on enemies such as snails, wasps, preying mantes and fish, with some impressively huge screen-filling bosses to contend with. Along your way, you’ll collect flowers to build up your power-ups.
Apidya’’s power-up mechanic is one of the mechanisms that the game borrows from Japanese shmups, aping that of Konami’s seminal Gradius, with power-up options selected from a menu situated along the bottom of the screen. The most effective of which is probably the ‘spread’, which gives your bullets a wider range of coverage.
Speaking of bullets, here, too, Apidya’ borrows from Japanese shmups. Depending on which fire button you deploy, you can either autofire or build up a charge attack in the vein of Irem’s R-Type. Also reminiscent of R-Type is Apidya’’s drone, though you have less control over it than you do of the drone in R-Type.
The presentation of Apidya’ also borrows from its Japanese influences, with the game’s logo even featuring its title in Kanji, despite the game being developed in Europe, and the in-game art also boasts a strong manga-influenced style, and the game’s sampled speech, although, in English, is even Japanese-accreted, such as when the game bellows out its title on the title screen.
While the original Amiga version of Apidya’ was a great-looking game that played well, the new Apidya’ Special feels rather like the original game was its larval form, and it went into a cocoon 33 years ago, to emerge in its fully finished adult form here in 2026! Apidya’ Special improves upon the original game with lush new widescreen HD graphics and a new studio-recorded version of Amiga legend Chris Huelsbeck’s soundtrack, and even expanded levels.
But those who want the full old-school nostalgic Amiga Apidya’ experience can choose to play with the original 4:3 Amiga graphics, and the original Amiga soundtrack. Though, if you’re coming to Apidya’ Special new, and looking for a fun gaming experience rather than a trip down memory lane, we’d recommend sticking to the newly recreated Special version of the game. Another improvement afforded by playing the game on modern formats as opposed to on the Amiga is the availability of more than one fire button, which allows for button presses to autofire, charge attack and to select power-ups.
You might be wondering why you might want to play an ersatz Japanese arcade-style shmup when modern formats give you access to so many Japanese shooters that were actually made in Japan, not to mention actually released in arcades, but that would be doing Apidya’ Special a disservice. No matter its provenance, Apidya’ Special is a great retro shoot ‘em up, whose unusual setting makes it well worth playing, and we must admit that being able to shoot down wasps is undeniably cathartic! However, being based on a game from the 1990s, Apidya’ Special is undeniably a tough game, to the point that we kind of wish ININ Games had included some cheats (even though we’d never normally lower ourselves to cheating!) But despite the lack of cheats, there are some options you can deploy to mitigate the game’s steep difficulty, such as increasing the frequency with which you’re awareded extra lives, increasing the number of continues, and retaining accrued power-ups after dying. We must applaud ININ Games for their stellar work in reviving some of the lesser-known retro games of the past, and making them available to a whole new audience because Apidya’ is certainly worthy of finding a new audience!
Apidya’ Special has been developed by Team Apidya and it was published by ININ Games on August 25, 2026, and it’s available on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox (version reviewed), and Nintendo Switch.
