Grounded

Genre: Open-World Survival Adventure

Players: 1-4 Co-Op (Online)

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Review:

Grounded is an Open-World Survival Adventure released on Xbox One and PC in 2022 and ported to PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch in 2024. This game evokes the classic family film Honey I Shrunk the Kids, with a similar plot of youngsters finding themselves shrunk down to the size of insects in a garden or backyard. In this game, players must find ways to gather resources, craft tools and structures, and explore the world around them to find a way to reactivate the device that can hopefully return them all to normal size. However, standing in their way are the need to be mindful of hunger and dehydration, as well as the danger posed by bugs stalking the area (though the game offers up-front a way for players to replace the giant spiders with less-scary enemies, if they prefer).

Grounded is a fairly modern game created with the Xbox One and its successor in mind, and so naturally one wonders how the game manages to hold up on Nintendo Switch. And the answer is… about as well as could be expected. Grounded works on Nintendo Switch, which is a wonder in itself given its massive 3D world full of giant plants and humongous bugs, along with its detailed slightly-cartoony characters. However, there are massive sacrifices all-around to make it work – there’s a long load time when first firing up the game, the draw distance has been reduced, the resolution looks awful, the framerates chug at times, and creatures moving in the distance (particularly flying bugs) have such an absurdly low framerate it looks like they’re repeatedly teleporting through the sky.

Is it playable? Yes. But there’s no question that this is the absolute worst way to play this game.

Of course the cinematic soundtrack and voiced character quips all made the jump just fine, and help to build up the game’s atmosphere, so that’s something, at least. And to the game’s credit, its varied environments and expressive insects still all do a great job of making this game a delight to look at, even if it can look like you’re viewing this world through a lens smeared with Vasoline.

When it comes to the gameplay itself, Grounded finds a great balance between pushing players to constantly be hunting for resources, building up their own tools, and even custom-designing their own home base, all while exploring outward to get access to new shrunk-down research bases that will help them to expand their capabilities further. What’s more, the co-op in this game is absolutely wonderful, letting each player contribute in their own way, whether that is in exploration and combat, resource-gathering, or base-building.

This game even supports full cross-play with all platforms, and after a little fiddling around I was able to get this to work quite well with a friend playing on PC. Players wishing to do so will need to sign in to a Microsoft account on a PC or smartphone once, but after doing so they can proceed to keep playing in cross-play from that point without any additional fuss.

Beyond the graphical downgrade the Nintendo Switch version of this game received, there is one other complaint I have about Grounded – the game utilizes some pretty poorly laid-out and confusing menus that not only make it difficult to find what you’re looking for, but make it difficult to even realize what options you have available to you. And swapping held items feels clunky and inelegant, something that can be a real hindrance if you’re in a frenetic battle with a nasty bug and need to swap weapons or heal, with each menu taking a brief moment to load.

Overall, Grounded is still a really enjoyable mix of a creative 3D Open-World with Survival Adventure mechanics and great co-op, and all of this has survived in the Nintendo Switch release. Having said that, this release really suffers from the graphical downgrade in everything from the visuals and performance to even the menus. This is a great game, but the Nintendo Switch version is absolutely the worst way to play it.

tl;dr – Grounded is an Open-World Survival Adventure that has players taking the role of kids shrunk down to the size of bugs trying to survive in a garden while searching for a way to return to normal size. Despite its Xbox One origins, this game works on Nintendo Switch, though not very well, with numerous nasty graphical compromises. What’s more, the menu system is unnecessarily clunky, confusing, and awkward to use. Despite these issues, Grounded is still a wonderful game with some great cross-play co-op, and if Nintendo Switch is your only gaming platform, this is a decent way to play this game.

Grade: B-

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2024 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Action-RPG, Best Multiplayer

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