Golfish

Genre: Sports (Mini-Golf)

Players: 1

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Review:

Golfish, released in 2026 on PC, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, takes the basic concept of a Mini-Golf game and reimagines it as a fish popping out of one hole in the ice and spitting out water to propel itself to another hole in the ice, helped along by various kinds of sea life.

Despite being a budget game, Golfish actually has a lovely presentation with polished, colorful, cartoony 3D visuals, albeit in a somewhat simple, abstract world. These visuals are backed by a surprisingly catchy soundtrack, though sadly I don’t have any examples to share here. Overall, this game looks and sounds very nice.

The gameplay here starts with a pretty standard, generic mobile-style Mini-Golf formula, complete with Angry Birds-style pull-back and release gameplay. However, it doesn’t take long for this game to reveal there’s more going on here than at first it seems. Where most golf games have you trying to reach the hole in as few shots as possible, Golfish is less concerned with shots than it is water, and more specifically the water your fish spits out to propel itself. This means that a more powerful shot will equate to multiple shots, since you’re using more water to shoot yourself farther. The result is that this game is less about speed or limiting your moves, but rather maximizing your efficiency.

Then, to make things more interesting, you’ll start interacting with various forms of sea life, that all respond to you in different ways, whether that’s a crab that holds you above its head and carries you from spot to spot until you shoot again, or pufferfish that automatically shoot you in a specific direction, or kelp that automatically has you moving up and down like an elevator. That’s another thing that really separates Golfish from other Mini-Golf games: it’s surprisingly vertical, and this makes it so you often have to think about levels in three dimensions. At its best, Golfish almost feels like a Puzzle-Platformer, where you need to figure out how the chain of various critters can be used to get from point A to point B, looking at these levels as a kind of living Rube Goldberg machine.

For complaints, I think the way the game limits you to set amounts of shot power feels restrictive in a way I don’t care for, and the puzzle-like level design may disappoint players looking for a skill-based Golf game, when Golfish isn’t really about getting your aim and power just right, but rather it’s about being smart about where you shoot, how much power you use, and the timing of your shot.

Overall, I think Golfish is a delightfully original take on the genre, and one that’s easy to jump into for its low $5 price tag. I don’t think this is going to be a Mini-Golf game for everyone, but I think players who approach this game with a more puzzle-solving mindset will find it to be a delight.

tl;dr – Golfish is a Mini-Golf game where players are trying to get a fish from one fishing hole to another by spitting out water to propel itself around while getting help from various kinds of sea life. This is a wonderfully original Puzzle-focused take on the genre, and one with a solid presentation. I don’t think this is going to appeal to every Mini-Golf fan, but players looking at this as a puzzle rather than a test of skill will likely be delighted, and the low $5 price tag makes this game an easy one to give a try.

Grade: B

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