How does Penumbra compare to Amnesia?

[Sexbad]

I really don't get these comments about Amnesia not having as much story. The entire point of the game(besides losing your mind) was learning about what lead Daniel to inducing amnesia to begin with, and why he begs himself to kill Alexander.

The only real difference is that in Penumbra you read everything; there is very little voice acting besides one particular character. Amnesia has a lot more story-telling devices.

For me, Penumbra felt much more story-oriented because it had a whole lot of world building going on as well as Philip's personal tale, while Amnesia mostly focused on the characters.

Penumbra had an extensive system of logs that connected pretty much everybody together in some way. The notes in Shelter's kennel, for example, had an excellent callback to the spider eater near the hatch you fell through. Every environment that was fucked up was fucked up in some sort of significant event.

Amnesia doesn't have as much of that. It has a few healthy exceptions, like the stories of the prisoners in the prison and nave and such, but it rarely goes as deep in history as Penumbra. It is mostly, "You have made progress; here is more stuff." Instead it works up the creepy vibe mostly through the fact that it is set in a spooky medieval castle--after all, a whole lot of bad shit happened in castles, whereas mines and laboratories are comparatively innocent, both aesthetically and historically.

[dorquemada]

But if you have anachro(orwhateverit'scalled)phobia be warned - Overture is nightmare.

Unless you truly meant "fear of outdated stuff", I believe term is arachnophobia. Which, if the OP dealt with them imaginary crawlies in Amnesia, shouldn't be a problem in Penumbra either.

Having played Penumbra after Amnesia, I have to say that in term of scariness it doesn't even come close, but still is moderately scary, have interesting, albeit different, more scientific story, and puzzles are definitely more complicated. For me personally it wasn't the ability to kill monsters that made it less scary (since you're fighting like an amputee with boxing gloves I preferred to sneak or run past anyway), but

Spoiler below!

Red and especially Clarence. When you're not alone, it's instantly less scary, and it's even more difficult to get frightened when the hammy voice in your head constantly cracks jokes.

All in all, with in on sale on gamersgate again, Penumbra is definitely worth playing.

[TaCTiCaLxReFLeX]

penumbra is a lot older, honestly i liked it better for its story. I know most ppl like amnesia better though but yeah you should give penumbra a try its not that expensive, and i reccomend buying the collection of all 3

[thetury455]

I would say Amnesia is way scarier because of the little music they put whle you are getting chased XD Penumbras... not as scary :p even though the dogs always scared me shitless...

[spukrian]

I've said many times that I prefer Penumbra to Amnesia. Here I will outline why.

Penumbra has better puzzles in general. Instead of instantly figuring out what to do, you actually have to stop and think for a while. I like thinking. Not to forget that there are a larger amount of puzzles with multiple solutions in Penumbra. With that said, there are of course a few bad puzzles in Penumbra.

In general, Amnesia is much scarier than Penumbra. But Penumbra has something that Amnesia doesn't and that is patroling enemies. Patroling enemies keeps you on the edge and more tense than enemies that just disappear after hiding a while.

Another thing is that in Amnesia, you're being told the story in flashbacks, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but for me this served to separate me from what had happened, i.e. making me a bit less immersed. Specificially I'm talking about (don't read if you haven't played Penumbra)

Spoiler below!

in Amnesia you are told about Daniel's evil deeds whereas in Penumbra you actually commit Philip's evil deeds in the present,

having a larger emotional impact on me and making me feel more immersed during those scenes in Penumbra.

[Annvdb]

. If I lightly push my mouse forward when I am holding a door, it doesn't fly open like I'm on steroids.

LMAO
Never commented before but this is funny as hell