Test conditions: We returned to the game on PlayStation 5 for around thirty hours and Nintendo Switch for around 3 hours, using codes sent by the publisher.
A small step into the giant world of survival games
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Grounded is a sandbox survival type game from the dads of Fallout New Vegas, The Outer Worldor even more recently Penment which was released on Switch, namely the talented ones from Obsidian Entertainment. The title makes us play one of the four available children, the latter of whom have been shrunk in a family garden, and their ultimate objective is to find a way to return to their normal size while surviving as best as possible in this land game as small as it is dangerous to play through.
Like all survival games, managing our character is essential if we want to get through this without dying stupidly of hunger or thirst, or more absurdly of a lack of endurance during a chase with a very aggressive group of spiders that are five times our size.
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Regarding this aspect, Grounded hasn't changed much since its early access and honestly it didn't necessarily need it because the management of hunger and thirst is classic but simply effective. In addition, we still have this ingenious idea of having made small drops of water on a human scale, an essential source to satisfy our thirst.
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Generally we retain from a sandbox type survival game all the construction aspect, and Grounded is quite well stocked in terms of possibilities. We can thus put our architectural talents to work, with for example the possibility of installing half-walls, half-foundations, or on the contrary, much larger elements to save time on construction. In addition, if you like to decorate your interiors you will be served with the many decorative items available, in order to have a leaf base in our image.
The little garden has grown well since then.
The main goal of early access is to release your game as soon as it is playable with sufficient content to last a few hours and subsequently add more through updates to keep players in suspense for several months, see years.
If there is indeed a major strong point of Grounded it's the beauty of exploring the different biomes, with its shimmering and colorful graphics which have not aged a bit since 2020, making the title unique in its artistic direction and totally exhilarating to browse.
In four years, the software has been able to bring new environments including a children's sandbox, an overturned barbecue with its coal ashes, a hedge full of verticality, or even one of our favorite biomes, the carp pond providing a fully explorable aquatic area, but be careful not to not get swallowed by a koi carp.
In its different biomes are hidden iconic sites of human objects which appear giant given our size, sometimes with references to other licenses such as a toy. Rash of the license Battletoads. But also, as on the first day, laboratories hidden in the four corners of the map, which essentially serve to unlock new recipes by analyzing different materials, including a multitude of original weapons and armor, the rarity of which will depend on their usefulness to break resources of a certain rank in the open world.
It's not just survival that has grown in Grounded, the story has also evolved with finally a beginning and an end to our playground because our little characters are always looking to return to their normal size. But like a ARK Or The Forestthe scenario is not essential to fully enjoy the content of Groundedit just serves as a common thread for the title, for those who want to seek an objective to accomplish in their game, a bit like the Ender Dragon in Minecraft.
A Switch version that works, and that’s already it..
In Microsoft's push to release its flagship games on other platforms like with Penment And Sea of Thievesone of which will probably never be able to navigate on Nintendo Switch, unless it is released on the next Japanese console which is slow to present itself to the public.
If the impossibility of going to sea on the Sea of Thieves on Switch is sad, we nevertheless understand this choice not to carry Sea of Thieves when we see the state of Grounded on the Nintendo console, which struggles to run correctly.
Obviously, it was more than obvious that the game would be inferior to other platforms, and it still remains brilliant to have tried to release the title on hardware as old as the Switch. However, it's far too difficult to recommend this version if given the choice.
In fact, the software runs with lots of technical difficultiesincluding FPS which aim for thirty frames per second with regular drops, an extremely low resolution making the title blurry as possible, even the text which is incomprehensible, which can hurt the eyes in the long term in the portable version, and loading times which can be counted in many minutes.
That said, Grounded remains ambitious all the same, especially in a world where Pokemon Scarlet and Purple exist. Unfortunately, with all the problems mentioned above, in addition to the textures and insects that appear just two meters from us, it is complicated to play it on Switch even if the quality of the port remains superior to another Obsidian game, The Outer World.
Furthermore, Grounded has become an excellent survival game which offers gargantuan content which is just waiting to be explored in this immense garden which will be your playground, even on the Nintendo console, which at least has the privilegee not to have amputated content.
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