Penumbra Overture Reviews

Good game. Very much like amnesia.

tryna bang plpl in this game n i dont kno the button hoiw lol the fck is this game. where the big boob n booty mod? fucking gaben u fuckING fat PIECE of SHIT

Amazing game. Started playing when I was teenager. Never completed it. Came back to it now over 15 years later. So glad I did. They just don't make games like this anymore, the storytelling, suspense, atmosphere. It's all great. Looking forward to playing the next 2 in the series. Honestly, its rare to have games like this. So many games get boring so quickly these days.

The main thing about this game is its spooky atmosphere and it is delivered very well through the environment, voice acting, and the notes you find along the way. If you are not a fan of reading lengthy notes then it might not be the right game for you. There is also not a lot of action or epicness, it's just a dude trying to get out of a haunted hole in the ground. The story is brief and many things remain unexplained, but it is enough to get you trapped in an old mine, and also the game is fairly short, so that's fine by me. In terms of gameplay it is basically a linear adventure with environmental puzzles. The puzzles are designed to create an interesting experience and support the immersion, they are not about setting a real challenge for the player. Some require pepeThinking and piecing together multiple notes but many are trivial. You could also say it's a survival horror but the same thing goes for the survival element of the genre. The resources are more than enough to get by and there is not much of a challenge in that department either, at least on a normal difficulty. Overall, it is an enjoyable spooky experience except for a couple of sections that devolve into a repetitive trial until you learn the pattern, like the one where you have to move between steaming tiles that instantly kill you if you make a mistake. The weakest part of the game is the melee combat and it is best avoided when possible.

Pretty great start from the catalog of Frictional Games, what distinguishes this game is that creepy atmosphere which keeps players on their toes throughout their play-through. However, the extreme chunkiness of the combat showcases why the devs completely got rid of the combat mechanics in their other games. Overall I give it a solid 7/10.

it's alright, still a recommend but probably a 6/10? the atmosphere carries this game heavy, Gameplay is meh but it is fun to throw explosive barrels at dogs. Puzzles are ok but the one in the auxiliary room can bug out with the power cable and its really annoying. Still enjoyed!

Combat is annoying and a little rough all around, but you can see the DNA that will become the Amnesia series. Even now, in 2025, it's still fun.

Don't be afraid to look up a guide, some of the puzzles are really obtuse, but this game has incredible atmosphere and an intriguing story

This game's atmosphere and writing hooked me in deep enough to go through with finishing the game over the course of a few days. An eerie atmosphere with some weird puzzles, I'd recommend it to fans of Frictional or adventure / horror genre, but do believe Amnesia offers a more fulfilling and scarier experience.

This game has an incredible atmosphere and an amazing soundtrack. The menu theme is incredibly powerful, and the story is interesting. The morse code puzzle is insanely creative. I'm giving this a thumbs down because the gameplay is that bad. Early 00s jank is one thing, but this may in fact be the worst combat mechanics in any video game I've ever played. The drag/click system is just outrageously clunky, and hiding from the 100 dogs you run into inevitably results in getting caught at some point. You can't even look at the dogs (like the sanity meter in Amnesia) or you get scared and subsequently caught I guess? This works in Amnesia because the monsters actually leave, whereas the dogs endlessly patrol each area. There's also just the fact that they're probably the most un-scary horror enemy in any horror game, along with the sp00ky spiders. It sucks because the feel of the Amnesia games is absolutely there, almost more so than The Bunker. It's just bogged down by, yet again, the worst controls I've ever experienced in any game probably ever.