An Octave Higher

With the exception of the antagonists, the main characters are extremely unlikable. Elise, a young factory worker who lives at a brothel, is an easily swayed idiot with a memory span of a goldfish. Then there’s Frederic, an aristocrat misogynist that uses every excuse under the sun to look down on everyone else. And finally, Franz, a well-off student that grew up among the upper class who eventually (after a series of misfortunate events) joins up with a group called Libertad. Franz is the only one that has any semblance of character development. He starts off naive about the world he truly lives in, but after being attacked by one of the bourgeoisie and being forced to live in poverty, his motivation for living changes drastically. The other two main characteristics remain static the whole time. Honestly, the writing bore me so much that I didn't even finish the main story line.

Honestly the game was pretty ok, but it had it's issues. First off, the true storyline was long, pretty good and had a pretty fleshed out ending. This was in contrast with most of the other endings that didn't take a long time to reach and felt pretty underwhelming and short. It portrays an interesting story and gives off an interesting message with quite a lot to think about. The game is a lot of reading though, there are not that many choices, but they can impact the game more significantly than you expect them to. The characters were written pretty well though some things could have been done different to add a few more routes. The soundtrack of the game was mostly classical music which I'm not the biggest fan of, but it fits well with the game and was pretty fun to listen to. All in all the game was enjoyable to play for once, but I don't think it has a lot of replay value nor would it be worth it to buy full price. I bought it on sale and I'd recommend to buy it on sale to, if the game seems interesting to you.

I think the current price is not worth it for a visual novel so I'd recommend ya'll buy it on sale. I've had this game for a couple months now and wanted to play something relaxing on my leisure time so I re-installed it and so far it's very intriguing. There's a whole lotta interesting points in it such as casting spells using keywords like "faith" or "compassion", portraying social inequality between the different ranks, and different POVs from the main characters (each from a different rank) of the story that draw you in. There is no voice-over or elaborate animations that last for more than a couple seconds so if you don't mind that, you're in for a good read.

Неуклюже левая новелла.

Great plot comes with great discount. Bought it via steam sale and glad to play.

Dear lord this was trash. Characters that don't act like people, a melodramatic plot, and a character loses their arms in an almost comedic fashion. I laughed when I know I should not have.

First off, I will admit upfront that I did not complete a playthrough of this game. That being said, I cannot recommend this game. I've played a number of Visual Novels in the past, and if I know one thing about VN's, it's that this is a story first and foremost. They live and die by their writing, for better or worse. And An Octave Higher is unfortunately the latter This VN clearly has a really interesting, and well thought out world, with a magical system that has some intriguing depth. It is clear that a lot of time, effort, and love went into creating a logical yet fantastical world... However, it makes the unfortunate mistake of being unable to contain it's excitement to tell you all about it in EXHAUSTING detail. There were far too many moments in the start of the game where this VN is more concerned with explaining, in depth, the logistics of any given topic than with actually progressing the story or having a scene that characterises the cast. It seems so preoccupied with preemptively answering questions on how certain modern conveniences exist in this world. I can't help but feel that the writers were hesitant to let too much of their world-building go to waste, and so front-load much of it in large, drab, boring paragraphs on how their magic system allows them to have flying machines and such. While well-intentioned, I often found myself skimming and skipping dialogue. There are ways to make exposition and world-building provide character to the person speaking it, but this VN never feels like it does that. I put up with it though. I was intrigued enough to see where it was going. But I ended up putting this game down for good when the character writing took a turn for the worse. I am no stranger to stories where the perspective character is not a good person. My favourite anime is Evangelion for goodness sake. An Octave Higher has one of the 3 main perspective characters as a morally dubious, and overall bad person. Which is fine. But what I took issue with was that I too often felt like the writing was trying to brush aside and downplay some of that character's more heinous actions in favour of making them feel more relatable. Perhaps that was just me, but I could never shake that feeling. All in all, the combo of dry exposition and an improperly handled morally dubious perspective character was too much. I won't say to avoid it, but I most certainly can't recommend it. There is not enough beyond its flaws to justify spending the time with it.

i can't tell what was worse, the rampantly misogynistic writing or the naively pro-capitalist conclusion. it's like seeing the french revolution retold by a guy who only reads shounen manga, who also thinks it's a real shame they executed marie antoinette cus she was a baddie

First of all, I would say: Endure the first scene that feels from a shonen manga. Passing that, the vn is pretty interesting, through infuriating at times. Though, a thing I disliked was how uneven were the endings, with 4 of them being really shallow. Through, there it´s a lot of ideology in the game, I think that it can still be interesting even if you don´t share it, as long as you are not prone to tamtrums.

I came across this visual novel by chance in a recent sale, at a humongous discount. Needless to write I didn't think much of An Octave Higher at first glance, other than the premise looked intriguing. And boy, though it is not the pinnacle of this kind of game by comparison to other giants in the genre, it really is a hidden gem! Without giving too much away about its story, An Octave Higher is about a group of characters who exist in a world of magic - which has also undergone significant industrial transformation. This has had various effects on people's lives, with how they respond to the problems they experience in this world being a major theme of the story. It is grounded in factual similarities to our world, that I think enhance it's appeal, to be a story which the reader can more easily relate to. It's no high fantasy tale, which is good if you don't like that kind of thing. The music being classical, another thread to the story, is also a nice change from more synthetic soundtracks. The art of the game, while not brilliantly dazzling, has a charm of its own which grew on me too. Having written all that, I can't guarantee that you'll like every aspect of it. I particularly disliked one ending for being very 'tropey'. In fact, all the ends (even the true ending) made me wonder why the creators didn't expand more on the consequences of the choices made. Additionally, some of the writing is a bit crass, or the way language is used similar to modern ways of speaking (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) sort of takes away from complete immersion. However, I think that is part of the charm for this game which presents a believable enough setting for its story to successfully work in. Definitely recommended for visual novel lovers.