In this work, porous magnesium (Mg) with a three-dimensional open-cellular structure, potentially employed as bone tissue engineering scaffolds, was fabricated by the mechanical perforation method. The influences of porosity, pore size and pore arrangement on compressive behavior and the anisotropy of new porous Mg were analyzed theoretically using orthogonal arrays and the finite element method (FEM). The results showed that the parameters of porosity, pore size and pore arrangement had different effects on the compressive properties. The compressive strength could be improved by optimizing these parameters. The anisotropy of porous Mg was also verified in this study. The theoretical results showed good agreement with the experimental ones before the strain reaches 0.038.