Cakes beating each other up to decide which one looks tastiest, the idea earns a grin before the controller is even in your hands.

On the gut-feeling pick, with no criterion, Cake Bash only edges ahead of 4% of games. That is low. Really low. And yet the breakdown tells a more nuanced story. Fun sits at the very bottom, so does rediscovery, and the desert island question lands in the same hole. But the sound environment climbs ahead of 19% of titles, art direction ahead of 12%, connection ahead of 8%. Controller feel rests on only three duels, so treat it as unconfirmed. Nothing glorious, but the tension is real: the game charms a little through its look and its mood, almost not at all through what it makes you feel over time.

That figures for a party game. It lives on the couch, four players, one evening. It has nothing to play in a contest that asks which game you feel attached to or which one you would love to discover again. On this platform's criteria, a party game starts with a handicap that has nothing to do with its quality.

So, who is it for? For you if you have people over, want ten minutes of split-screen laughter and something pretty to look at. Much less so if you play alone and want a game to keep.