Mobile Game Review of "Cake Mania 2"

Jill's back with more cake baking goodness. This time, enjoy her creations in SIX different wild locales, from lunar surface to Northwestern cafe, and 4 other exotic locations. On the other hand, the gameplay hasn't changed... This Diner Dash variant have added a bit of charm with the locales and new customers, while retaining the old charm.

The play routine remained the same: give menu to customer, bake cake, add frosting. Double-deck if needed. Add topping if needed. Present to customer for money. Grab money. It's the same formula. Except there are 4 different types of cake, 4 different types of frosting, up to 16 different types of toppings depending on which topper(s) you have upgraded or purchased... And remember... double-deck cakes. It can get very hectic. There are two win levels... the basic win level is just a win, while if you fulfill a higher amount it's called a superstar win. Basically, you did not make ANY mistakes.

If you manage to survive the level by earning the required amount of money, you can use the money you earned to upgrade your kitchen, which either makes cakes bake faster, or add frosting faster, or adds new toppers, or add a plate in center island to "suggest" cakes to buy or just have a place to put them down. You can even upgrade your shoes to make you go faster. There are also cookie ovens to make customers calmer (giving you more time to bake their cake) and TV (to make customer anxiety rise less... IF you got it on the right channel).

There are a few tricks you must learn to max the efficiency. 1) it's possible to queue up to 3 actions for Jill. For example, pick up cake from oven, drop cake at froster (and add vanilla frosting), then pick up cake from froster. A fourth action can be added as soon as the cake was picked up from the oven, and would be "drop cake at customer location". Add another "grab the cash" after the cake was left at the froster. 2) You don't need a plate to assemble a double-decker. Just frost the first cake normally, then flop the second cake on the first, and frost the second cake. This saves money and time. 3) Double the oven, double the fun.

All in all, Cake Mania 2 is what you'd expect from a sequel... MOTS (more of the same). You now have a choice of which locale to tackle first, though the mechanics is really the same. Diligent upgrades and careful playing to keep all customers happy and maximize tips are needed to stay afloat in the challenges. Still, the money requirement feels too... artificial. Wish they have a better excuse than that.

A 7.5 / 10 overall.