Grounded, the microscopic adventure? – TEST

In July 2020, Obsidian Entertainment launched the early-access of Groundedsurvival game published by Xbox Games Studios. About two years later and after many updates and modifications, the full version of the game appeared on the platforms of the ecosystem of Microsoft. Two more years later, players are surprised to discover that four exclusives Xbox Games Studios will be released on competing platforms: Grounded is one of these lucky ones and is now available on Nintendo Switch. If the promise of the titleObsidian was attractive on paper, we wonder doubly about the practice, both concerning the game itself and its version Switch.

1001 teeming paws

The principle of Grounded is very simple to understand. Reduced to a lilliputian size, the player is released into a garden located at the back of a house. While the garden was probably a pleasant place to relax, this drastic change in scale transforms it into a place filled with danger. Grounded can be played in several different ways but the core of its gameplay lies in the survival within this now hostile environment. The adventure can be lived solo but also up to 4 players online : enough to extend its domination over the garden in record time!

There we find the main mechanics of the genre: management of hunger, thirst, health and endurance of your character and countless resources to craft all kinds of objects. A few twigs, shreds of plant fiber and some gravel will allow you to make an ax or a hammer which, in turn, will allow you to recover other materials which themselves will be used to make new objects and so on.

In this, Grounded is a game which above all rewards curiosity and exploration, especially since the game is stingy with interventionist tutorials: each new resource can be analyzed, which will give you a substitute for experience points which will unlock more new recipes as you go. Be careful, however, because, as we mentioned, the garden is full of dangers, notably insects and arthropods which, for some, will attack you on sight. Spiders, mosquitoes and red ants will pounce on you, chelicerae and stingers brandished so that flight will often remain the best option to avoid being devoured and losing all your resources.

From this point of view, Grounded fulfills its part of the contract by brilliantly creating an experience at the crossroads between Honey, I shrunk the kids And Robinson Crusoe. Beyond the tools, weapons and armor you can (and must) make to survive, a lot of the fun is creating a base. If the base is not fundamentally essential to progress in the game, it nevertheless remains very useful for storing resources and sheltering you against the most aggressive insects. You are given great freedom to do this: from a small, unpretentious hut to a fortress, you will be able to create the shelter that best suits you.

More laborious execution

If the very concept of Grounded is brilliant, the fact remains that its execution is less convincing. The main reason probably lies in an overall lack of precision made to the game's controls. More frustrating than exhilarating, your character's movements suffer from a cruel lack of finesse making each movement laborious, which will not fail to be felt when you have to move from twigs to twigs without the slightest possibility of clinging to any surface. While we could have imagined meticulous and calculated movements thanks to the millimetric size of your character, we find ourselves with the same sensations as in a mod Fortnite poorly optimized.

On the same topic, the game camera is often capricious, which is clearly not helpful when you're facing the unbearable mites who force you to constantly reorient your viewing angle to try to hit them with your weapons. This overall lack of subtlety in character control makes combat as uninteresting as possible, regardless of the weapon used. Moreover, the technique of this Switch version does not help either : between resolution below 720p and framerate at 30 fps but unstable in certain environments, Grounded does not shine on the console Nintendo. You can find a complete analysis of the technique of the game by Digital Foundry in this article.

Although unflattering on Switchthe garden remains a wonderful playground thanks to an intelligent distribution of numerous points of interest and obstacles. Above all, we see the talent with which Obsidian transforms everyday objects: a baseball becomes a peak to climb, a hedge trimmer becomes a rising platform and the smallest can of soda becomes an unexpected source of drink for your character. THE Creative Fashion allows you to step into the shoes of the developers by creating your own garden: whether it involves decorative elements, plants or insects, you are free to organize your playground in total freedom.

Accessibility with a capital A

Despite an overall lack of finish, Grounded is also illustrated by accessibility rarely seen elsewhere. All kinds of parameters can be modified at the start of the game: overall difficulty, reduction of your character's constants, insect behavior, etc. You can use many levers to tailor this experience exactly as you wish. A special mode has even been provided for arachnophobes and allows you to drastically modify the appearance of spiders to make them less frightening. Accessibility remains optional but perhaps ideal for players who would be discouraged by the complicated progression of the game. Faced with this ocean of resources, recipes and obstacles, we quickly lose patienceespecially when it comes to finding a specific material without having the slightest idea of ​​its location.