KOI is a beautiful, serene experience on the PS4. The color palette is initially filled with brilliant colors and the simplistic but extremely lovely art is quite soothing to look at and very enjoyable to behold. As you progress through the 8 levels that take place in a river and pond in the game, your world will change abruptly to shades of grays, dark browns, and more dismal colors, indicating the water is becoming more polluted. While you'll still be controlling your adorable little orange Koi fish, and you'll still come into contact with other Koi who are also as brightly colored as you (for the most part), the aesthetics of the game clearly let you know things are getting worse as you progress. Damn humans throwing their old high heels and boots into the once pretty river!

Sound effects include water dripping and swishing sounds, all set to the beautiful tinkling Chinese music that plays in the background at all times. When I first began playing, it was very calming, but again, as you progress and encounter enemies and more dangerous levels, the music will change to suit and take on a panicked feel or one of impending danger. It works quite well for the game, though.

KOI is an adventure game where you play a Koi fish whose river has fallen prey to something that is changing it from the beautiful, peaceful place it has always been, to something altogether different. Colored flowers along the way will need to be opened up by fish of a matching color and the way to do this is to travel all around the watery levels, looking for little hiding fish that need to be rescued. Once you pass them, they will tag along in your trail and you can deposit them at their appropriate flower, which causes the flower to open and allows you to progress in the level. The string of fish trailing behind me reminded me of a favorite PS3 game of mine from back in the day, The Last Guy, although instead of alien monsters knocking your fish out of their trail, at times you will be chased and hunted by a giant black fish with glowing red eyes who will lock onto you and knock the fish about the area, for you to then recollect. He'll also happily knock you around and disorient you for a time, leaving you vulnerable. The good news is that he can be redeemed and turned back into a tiny white fish, and is only temporarily big and bad because of the pollution.

Certain areas may be blocked with branches and you will have to complete a puzzle in order to rescue a fish blocked by the branches or simply to move forward in the level. Another has a group of chameleons hovering in an area of water in a hidden nook and I believe completion of this mini-game provided me with a star or a puzzle piece extra. The last one had a mixed up picture and you had to rotate the pieces to make a complete picture and it was pretty simple. More on the first two puzzles in the Difficulty section, though.

Stars and puzzle pieces are items that are scattered throughout levels. There are four of each and obtaining all four puzzle pieces unlocks the picture representing the level and actually tells the story. The reason this is a bad thing is because you don't know the actual story until you have obtained all the puzzle pieces, which seems kind of lame to withhold the incredibly meager and preachy story of humans polluting this river from the player unless they 100% the puzzle piece aspect. What's worse is the fact that one level includes a rushing part of a stream that literally forces you through a good part of the level, so it is pretty much impossible to grab any pickups you may see along the way. When I say it forces you, I mean I thought my controller batteries were malfunctioning and I just sat there watching the game as it played itself, which wasn't fun.

KOI doesn't have a changeable difficulty setting and, as such, it simply is what it is. Initially, it is a very easy game, only requiring you to move your little fish around and avoid the big black fish. Soon, you'll enter more dangerous areas where there are electrical wires that can stun you and areas that are blocked off by mechanisms until you find the correct fish/flower combos to open them.

Probably the most frustrating aspect of KOI are the puzzles, though. One such puzzle involved leaves on tree branches that would light up in a pattern for you to replicate a la Simple Simon. This puzzle actually had me stumped for a bit because using the stick to move the highlight to different leaves is done in a left to right pattern and not using the full abilities of the Left Stick, as you would control the fish. Since it always seemed to end the pattern by starting on one certain leaf and I was trying to select the leaf below it (not to the left or right of it), at first, I couldn't get the highlighted leaf to change. I can see this frustrating children, who might be drawn in by the simple and pretty aesthetics. As an adult, I was frustrated for a time.

Another puzzle involved matching two chameleons from a group of 8 or 10 in a memory-type game, but it was odd because when I encountered the puzzle and pressed the (Circle) button to activate it, there were no instructions; the timer just started counting down. I assumed it was a color/pattern matching game, but it was tricky, only wanting you to match patterns regardless of the color. The instructions came after I failed to complete the mini-game, but were unnecessarily frustrating.

Finally, the second to last level finds you swimming in a huge lake (much more large in explorable scale than any previous level), populated by stationary little white fish and large hunting black fish, looking to slam into you. I explored the entire area trying to figure out what I was supposed to do, completely stumped and confused. Finally, I realized that the purpose of this level was to get hit a certain number of times by the black fish. What??? This is completely opposite to what the game has taught me the whole way through and I didn't think it was a good way to flip the script.

One more thing - sometimes I'd approach the end of a level, but not realize it was the end of the level, only to see a puzzle piece or star and have the level end on me without having had the opportunity to snag it. Not cool. Sure, I could replay the entire level to grab that one piece, but nah. I think nearly all of KOI's difficulty lies in wonky puzzles and intentionally backwards mechanics.

You are a little orange fish in KOI and you move the fish around using the Left Stick. It's very easy to control and picking up other fish requires you to simply pass by them. You can drop them off at their flowers by getting them close and pressing the (Circle) button. To avoid the big black fish, you simply move out of their way and try to avoid their sight line, which is visible on the screen. I did find that it was odd that you needed to use (Circle) for everything, including getting into the game, using the menu, and changing whether you are playing a level, looking at unlocked levels or puzzle pieces, or changing the settings. I am used to using (X) to do those things and I just had to reprogram my brain while I played.

There is also an Old Toad located throughout the levels and visiting him provides you with clues and you can also get an achievement for not missing him in any level. It's just an extra though, because his advice isn't groundbreaking.

Overall, KOI is a very pretty game that you can play through in a short time. If you want to 100% it, you'll have to search for all of the stars and puzzle pieces, but good luck on the rushing stream level. While it is very pretty and parts of it can be soothing, it can be beaten very quickly and I don't really see myself going back to it. It's just a little on the short side and the only real challenge came in sometimes trying to figure out just what the game wanted from me. If you can get it on sale, it is quite lovely to look at, but I don't think I'd pay full price for it, but I wouldn't mind having a similar little painting done in that style in my house. It really is a pretty and colorful little game.