History YMMV / AmnesiaTheDarkDescent

** The infamous [[http://www.allgeek.tv/wp-content/uploads/2010/amnesia.jpg NA boxart]] features a Grunt that tries its hardest to look scary, but due to bad artwork and lighting, it ends up looking like a silly yellow duck man thing instead. Daniel's clueless facial expression doesn't make things any better.

* ItWasHisSled: The game was designed to keep the monsters out of sight so their appearance would be a mystery to players. But the monster designs have become so well-known that the Grunt-type enemy is practically a mascot for the game!

* FanNickname: The monsters are never directly named in-game (but are so in the game files) so a variety of nicknames sprung up. Grunts, [[spoiler:the jawless ones,]] have gone by [[FacialHorror Mr. Face (or Mr. Flappyjaw)]] while Brutes, [[spoiler:the metal-infested [[TheFaceless faceless]] ones]] have gone by Mr. Tall.

** Yes, even in ''this'' horror-filled game there is still a woobie -- Daniel. His backstory is very tragic, he had an abusive father, he was bullied in school, and his sister was terminally ill. When Daniel stumbled onto the orb, he was constantly followed by the Shadow and all of the people he tried to reach out to, got brutally murdered by the EldritchAbomination. He was also manipulated by Alexander into torturing and killing innocents in the hope that it will defend him against The Shadow. When he murdered a girl in cold blood, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone he realized what type of person he had become]]. He had to take an amnesia potion in order to be able to get his revenge on Alexander without having the immense burden of guilt on his shoulders.

* ThatOneLevel: The Choir. It's huge. It's open. It's easy to get lost in. And there are Brutes ''everywhere''. There are no dark places to hide in either; when one appears, all you can do is duck behind one of the room's many pillars and hope he doesn't come too close. The three rooms you're supposed to go into will drain your sanity just by being inside them, and they're loaded with SchmuckBait that will reduce you to a gibbering wreck quickly.

* ComedicSociopathy:
** The game is horrifying to play, especially alone at night, but watching other people play it while freaking out is inherently hilarious. ''[[HypocriticalHumor You]]'' will probably be whimpering/screaming profanity during gameplay, but that doesn't stop it from being terribly amusing. Playing it with observers on On Live is a good example of this.
** You know it is scary when it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIRo0iT0qNw#t=01m58s scares the British accent out of you...]]
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4w0_n1Yras&t=4m25s This one]] might be the best known, and is notable for being the source of the minor fandom meme "Oh shit, I have a bag of Milky Ways."
* CompanionCube:
** Not so much on Daniel (the player character)'s part, but many players will find and cling to some item in the environment as a security blanket -- for example, LetsPlay/PewDiePie often picks up (and talks to) random objects, naming and giving them voices, as a self-comfort measure. Rather famously, Markiplier named his companion cube, a small box, as "Tiny Box Tim."
** The lantern may be this to some players considering it is a source of light that is always with you through most of the game and helps maintain your sanity.
** Main Cistern area and [[spoiler: where you meet Agrippa in the Nave, which works as a breather room]].

%%* MagnificentBastard: Alexander.

* EnjoyTheStorySkipTheGame: Outright encouraged by the developers. The gameplay is fairly simple, consisting of rudimentary stealth sequences interspersed with physics puzzles and adventure game-style puzzles, but the story is much more complex and detailed.

* BaseBreakingCharacter:
** Daniel. Depending on the end, is he really an AssholeVictim for his atrocious acts in the past?
** Agrippa. Is he an [[PlotTumor unwelcome non-stop-talking distraction]] in an otherwise classic revenge horror story? This has [[StoryBranchFavoritism divided the fans]] of the game. Some see it as [[MalignantPlotTumor benign]]. Many reject the notion that his ending is the GoldenEnding, in favor of [[CuttingOffTheBranches Daniel's ending]] since that is the original motive, is [[AmbiguousEnding not ambiguous]], and ends as it begins (with the main character's narration).

** Alexander. Many times, Alexander displays his callous attitude towards the humans he tortures as if they were no different from the dogs he had experimented on previously, but [[spoiler:it is made clear in the notes, diaries and cylinders that he is originally from an alien race far more advanced than ours, and you can't help but wonder about his sorrow at being trapped in an alien world, separated from his wife and anyone of his own kind, doomed to die a slow and lonely death unless he finds a way back home.]] To put it another way, [[spoiler:would a human being trapped on another world torture and kill animals of a lower intelligence if it was the only way return to Earth?]]

* DarthWiki/MostAnnoyingSound: If you aren't super attentive about keeping your sanity meter high (which isn't easy, considering how many things can drain it and how quickly lamp oil burns out), prepare to spend a ''lot'' of time listening to the sounds of insects crunching away through your speakers.
** Prisoner's screams in Prison and Transept area.

* MostAnnoyingSound: If you aren't super attentive about keeping your sanity meter high (which isn't easy, considering how many things can drain it and how quickly lamp oil burns out), prepare to spend a ''lot'' of time listening to the sounds of insects crunching away through your speakers.

* MeaningfulName: It is possible that Malo de Vigny was named after St. Malo - a port city located in Brittany, France.

* Meaningful Name:
** It is possible that Malo de Vigny was named after St. Malo, which is a port city located in Brittany, France.

* Meaningful Name: It is possible that Malo de Vigny was named after St. Malo, which is a port city located in Brittany, France.

* CounterpartComparison: The protagonist is in a state of desperation, makes a [[DealWithTheDevil deal]] with a ManipulativeBastard, who has been around for centuries, and strands the protagonist in a hazardous place which is hard to come out from. The protagonist then decides to find the one who tricked them and atone their doings- hold on! Are we talking about Daniel and Alexander, or [[VideoGame/DontStarve Wilson and Maxwell]]?

* MostWonderfulSound: That deep breath you hear as the screen flashes blue, signifying that you've solved another puzzle and replenished some sanity to boot.

** The ''SpoilerWarning'' [[http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=10529 play-through]], between [[PungeonMaster Rutskarn's puns]], [[{{Troll}} Josh's playstyle]] and [[CausticCritic Shamus' complaining]], took the mickey out of the entire game. The highlights climaxed with Josh ending up ''riding a monster'', making everyone lose it.

* AwesomeMusic:

** The Tenebris Lake mod's ending can be that depending of the route chosen in the ending. [[spoiler: In the ending, when the building starts to collapse you have the choice of saving the player character's wife and kids, albeit resulting in the player character's death due to him not making it on time and being buried by the falling debris, [[WhatTheHellHero or you can save yourself and leave the player character's wife and kids, who are locked in a room, to die in the crumbling building.]] You're either living an asshole or dying a hero.]]

* TheCrocIsTicking: The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PvZgwL9O7M terror music]], which signifies that a monster is chasing you. Apart from being very bad news whenever it happens, the sound itself is terrifying, sounding like someone screaming bloody murder.

* AwesomeMusic: The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ0DIGfvKQA peaceful music]] that plays in [[BreatherLevel the back hall]] after escaping the water monster. It gives out a feeling of purity and safety after the terrifying experience.