Penumbra: Black Plague Gold Edition Reviews

Better than Amnesia

"Penumbra: Black Plague" is the continuation of "Penumbra: Overture" and ultimately I feel is the weaker of the two, though judging from what I've read, I am personally in the minority regarding that feeling. That said, I still feel that Black Plague is a fun and interesting title. A new side character helps carry Black Plague into new heights. Where "Red" was your mysterious voice over the radio for Overture, you now have a much more... personal voice to accompany you. Where Black Plague loses me is the fact that they tossed out their combat mechanics present in Overture. One could argue this is the birth of the blueprint that would later become "Amnesia: The Dark Descent" A landmark title in all of horror gaming, so how could that possibly be bad? It's the removal of identity. Overture's combat system is clunky, yes. But it held a strange skill ceiling to it, and allowed for some limited environment manipulation. It wasn't fantastic, yet it was unique and it could be tense. There was enjoyment to be had when trying to wrangle down a snarling dog because every failed swing was an inch closer to death. There was risk. With its removal it is now a game of cat and mouse. If you have played the Amnesia titles (minus "The Bunker") or Outlast, you pretty much know what you're in for. With all that said, I still recommend Black Plague. It's the continuation of Overture, and it's still Penumbra. The story is interesting, environments are fun to traverse through, and the atmosphere is still peak. I'm writing this with the assumption that Overture has been played first. This is still Penumbra and the story is worth finishing, just understand that some of its unique qualities have been stripped away via mechanics and time itself.

its pretty fun like the first one but more scarier without weapons. absolutely loving this series so far.

Okay... I do recommend playing this game because the puzzles are thought provoking and fun. But OMG the characters are so much worse in this sequel than Overture. I had to Google when The Dark Knight released because Clarence is just an annoying straight rip of The Joker. RED was amazing but my lord, Clarence was bad... Play for the puzzles, avoid the characters and story.

a LOT better than overture. the removal of the garbage combat system was necessary, and the new enemies are far more terrifying than just dogs and spiders. also: gosh darn it Clarence, I thought we could be friends.

absolutely amazing atmospheric storytelling. barrel puzzle made zero sense though, they could've easily come up with a better one.

Having played all of the Amnesia games (Except The Bunker) and Soma (My personal favorite Frictional Game), I decided to go back into the developers evolution and picked up the Penumbra games. While Overture didn't stand out to me and wasn't memorable, Black Plague rounds the series out a bit more. It's a 17 year old game, it has the classic old game jank they almost always have. Movement is sluggish, interacting with objects (while probably impressive physics for at the time) feels weird and moving things across the floor is especially fucking wonky. The visuals definitely show age, and the game is weirdly loud at points. Despite all this the game ran really well, with nothing that stuck out as a bug to me. The story is really simple with basic characters you'll likely forget, it does wrap up everything it set up from Overture, but there are a billion games with similar stories that are better. The main story can be understood by hearing the dialog, but all of the background lies in the collectibles, and the collectibles are not interesting (Trust me, I collected all 20). I was surprised to see Phillip isn't voiced at all, besides one line at the beginning, and at that it's a different voice from the first game. While seeming like an awkward change this actually works to let the best character, Clarence, and his phenomenal voice actor Robert Pike Daniel shine, and he steals the show. Like Frictional's common formula, it's based around exploration, however one of the games biggest problems is having a lack of direction. Where to go in the 2 open areas is very unclear (and some rooms you need to go to before others but the game doesn't necessarily tell you this). You do at least know what you're trying to accomplish, but navigating the incredibly dark maze like corridors for the room you missed is frustrating. Also like Frictional's formula, there are puzzles and there are easily the worst part of this game. On several occasions I needed a specific puzzle walk through because some of the solutions are not based on whats given, or just incredibly frustrating and unfun (The circuit disk puzzle can eat shit). The game is scarier then the first, the atmosphere of the lab hits a lot better then the cave for me. There were a couple scares and very anxiety inducing set pieces that even got me, which horror games usually don't. In conclusion, there are a lot of better survival horror or horror puzzle games then this, like the original Amnesia or Soma, but if you're curious to see how Frictional started and get a couple hours and some scares out of 2 really short games it could be worse.

I honestly really like Black Plague, don't get me wrong, feels relatively straightforward, no combat option like overture, it really is more scary and definitely a little less frustrating than overture with much more leniency on some of its scripted quick encounters. What I really can't recommend is Penumbra: Requiem, it feels like they were just trying to throw in more puzzles for penumbra. Like all of the puzzles just feel really forced and rely a little too much on their buggy physics engine. I get it...this game is old...but puzzles shouldn't make me want to pull my hair out because their own systems aren't cooperating. Shit, I played the Alone in The Dark Reboot on the xbox 360, and even that games platforming and puzzles was less frustrating than this games puzzles, at least it was consistently buggy and you could kinda work around it. Feels like with Requiem, I'm fighting the damn code itself.

Absolute cinema. Still holds up after 16 years. Incredible improvement over Penumbra: Overture regarding the combat mechanics, atmosphere, mechanics, soundtrack, storytelling and enemies. If you're an Amnesia lover, you'll love this one. If you wanna be up to speed with the story play Penumbra: Overture before, but bare in mind that it is a little rough around the edges.

If played on steam deck this requires Lutris to be able to finish. My proton save is stuck on a puzzle were you have to put a dead dog on a pedestal this just stun locks you in a burning room and running the Linux version crashes within seconds. The game runs and looks better than the first game, the story is just as good and the enemies more varied. Thankfully the developers seen the error of their dog-hating ways and took out the dogs to kill by 8 yes 8 axe hits but in a act of defiance put in a game breaking bug for us steam players by none other than a flaming dog impaled on a pedestal - thats irony for ya. Recommended but not for dog lovers. Woof!