Review: Bake ‘n Switch

What we liked!

• The gameplay: Normally I am quite skeptical of cartoony co-op games, since they usually boast for cuteness factor (more on that later), and less about fluid gameplay. Boy was I wrong with that assumption. The gameplay feels just straight-up amazing. The way you have to communicate in co-op modes to be able to achieve more stars just feels polished and well-integrated.
• Unique levels: Each and every level feels different. During the start, you get to pick from different regions to play in (desert and mainland), in which you have a whole roadmap of levels, with unique enemies, and cute little thingies to throw in the oven. It truly does not feel stale.
• Characters: In the game, you have 6 different playable characters. Each of these characters has a “special ability”. These can vary from a kitty cannon to a flame-throwing baker. Each of these abilities has useful scenario’s when mastered correctly. Recently, I picked up this grandpa, which has an anchor. With this, you can combine all the spawns from the same type that are in a line, into one big spawn. This is insanely useful if you happen to stumble upon a highly populated playing field.
• Cuteness factor: My girlfriend is my special snowflake, and she likes cute and fluffy things. Not just every cute thing she sees, but only the really nice ones. Well, her first reaction when I gifted her a copy of this game (yes, I gave her a copy, to be able to play it together with her remotely), and she opened it, was amazing. The full-blown AHHHWWWW!!! was there. The characters, and especially the doughs are amazingly cute! Just every aspect of cute interactions, like a scared dough when there is thunder, or just a happy dough eating a little though, all the way to the cute cutscenes. It’s all there.
• The controls: The game just straight up feels amazing to wield, from mouse and keyboard, with clear indicators what buttons to press, to a controller where you get the amazing feeling of a laid-back party game with friends. Nothing much to say besides what I already wrote: perfect polish!
• Remote play support: Something I didn’t see coming, but local co-op is 100% supported on the remote play. This means that if you have your PC on (or console with you, but more applicable on PC users) and you have a compatible tv/module, you can bind 2 Xbox controllers to that module, and then play local co-op on the TV that’s on the same network! And given the nature of the game, this can make for some amazing couch moments together with friends (once COVID is over of course! Stay safe everyone!).

Somewhere between

• Local co-op: The game does support local offline co-op. This means that IF AND ONLY IF you have more than one controller, you can do local split-screen co-op. No matter how much I tried, mouse and keyboard, combined with a controller, is not possible on the same machine. But if you have multiple controllers, the local co-op feels amazing. If you go and start a local co-op game though, then you can’t invite a single online friend, which is a bit of a bummer, but understandable. (So not the same co-op rules as Rocket League where you can have 2 people on one PC, and then queue up for a matchmade game).
• Scaling: The game scales amazing (at first sight) to an ultrawide display. The graphics can be bumped up to super ultra + 60fps. But somehow, I felt some weird moments, as in, the furnace is sometimes not fully visible. It added an extra edge to the game since sometimes my girlfriend had to tell me what combo of doughs we needed to make, but I think this is a glitch and can be fixed later. If this would be fixed for 21:9 displays, then this could be moved to amazing points, but for now, it is a tad of a hindrance. If you look past the furnace logo not showing, then it just looks AMAZING, and scales like no other game has ever before.

What we disliked

• No matchmaking: If you don’t have friends to play with, then this game is just not for you. You are literally required to have other friends who either come to your place or that also own the game, to be able to play with them. If you think about the nature of the game, being a strict and tactical co-op game, then you can understand it, but it’s sad that if you select PVP mode, you also need a friend to play with.