Grounded was the right game at exactly the wrong time for me. When it was initially pitched back in 2020, I had essentially hit my limit with survival games with crafting elements—as you’ll recall from my The Long Dark review. Even with a company like Obsidian Entertainment attached, I couldn’t get over my exhaustion of managing hunger and thirst meters and slapping every object in sight to get materials for incremental progress.
But Grounded intrigued me with its unique premise and distinctive style. What is essentially a Honey I Shrunk the Kids video game? I could get on board with that. And while I missed it when it launched on the Xbox One back in 2022—due to the simple fact of not owning an Xbox One—I was more intrigued when the game found its way to the Nintendo Switch recently. Love it or hate it, the Switch’s status as a port-machine can open doors for unique stuff.
I won’t go too deep into it since CGM’s Philip Watson already wrote a pretty extensive review of the game, and there’s not much more I feel I could add to it. For those unaware, Grounded puts the player in the tiny shoes of one of four teens who were kidnapped and shrunk down—possibly for science, more possibly as a joke. They awake in a mysterious backyard with nothing but their wits and must face off against nature in order to restore the shrinking machine and get back to their normal life.
It’s a campy, unusual premise that brings the whole world to life in an incredible way. Stepping out of the first cave, seeing blades of grass stretching out like trees and household objects blown up to monolithic proportions evoked the thrill of exploring a world I had not felt since The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This also worked on the opposite end, as with every exaggerated proportion, the sense of danger felt so much more real.
“Grounded’s charm and unique atmosphere kept winning me over and pushing me to explore.”
I’m sure everyone has some version of this story, but the first time you see blades of grass being pushed aside in the distance, only to close in on a gargantuan spider, you develop a pit in your stomach that very few games have been able to achieve. Which is to say nothing of the handful of unintentional jumpscares from turning around to see a spider or other large insect you didn’t know was behind you. While the game’s myriad survival elements are still a bit boring and tedious—to me at least—Grounded’s charm and unique atmosphere kept winning me over and pushing me to explore.
Of course, being the Nintendo Switch version, what interested me most was the game’s performance and graphics, and I have to say, I was impressed. Grounded runs at a fairly stable 30fps on the Switch both on and off the dock—though it seems like it actually performs better in handheld. Naturally, there are going to be some sacrifices to the game’s resolution as it seems capped at 720p, and the draw distance for certain objects or enemies isn’t very far, but it loads relatively quickly—honestly, it might add to the game’s overall horror.
“Grounded runs at a fairly stable 30fps on the Switch both on and off the dock—though it seems like it actually performs better in handheld.”
Furthermore, the visual downgrade for the sake of performance means that a lot of the perspective and lighting effects present in other versions are missing here, which does subtract a bit from the world’s believability of the other versions. However, given the game’s somewhat cartoony vibe, it’s not really that big of a loss. Grounded has a very distinct look and feel even without the shaders and god-rays, and it’s still present in the Nintendo Switch version.
Honestly, I was impressed with Grounded on the Nintendo Switch. It runs great in all the ways that matter—although I still think every first-person game, especially on Nintendo Switch, should have motion aiming—it looks good enough for what it is, and it’s a pretty solid little game to have on a handheld system. If you’re a fan of survival games, then you’re definitely going to love this.
Pick up Grounded for Nintendo Switch for $49.99 CAD.
