When we talk about musical video games there are a few possible things that can be in discussion. There are games driven purely by music, Guitar Hero and Beat Saber are good examples, or there are games with a strong musical theme, like Hi-Fi Rush and Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Music. Keep looking, and you’ll keep finding new and vastly different examples of games and music coalescing into experiences that couldn’t be achieved with either art form in isolation. People of Note, from Iridium Studios and Annapurna Interactive, is more than just a turn-based RPG with rhythm elements. It is inherently, inseparably, hilariously musical.
Kicking off with aspiring pop star, Cadence, and her dreams of winning the Noteworthy song contest and finding fame in her home of Chordia, People of Note becomes a globe-trotting journey of apocalyptic stakes as she travels in search of an eclectic band to bring her a prize-worthy performance. Each nation is steeped in a particular style of music – pop, rock, EDM, rap and classical – and as the genre-bending group grows so does the realisation that a forgotten history and vast conspiracies secretly threaten to throw this entire world into chaos.
It’s an interesting enough thread to follow, but this game’s true narrative strength isn’t its immediate plot but the sheer quality of writing throughout. Your band of misfits are a great bunch of clashing but empathetic personalities backed up by incredibly strong dialogue and rounded character work that makes every turn in the story feel believable and earned, and even in the bleaker moments there’s so much charm to be found. It helps that this team has seemingly found a way to mine musical gags at scale, because the game is riddled with them. There’s not a conversation or corner of the world that doesn’t have a music-themed name or visual bit or mechanic.
There are so many really neat realisations of the core ideas at work here, especially looking at each distinct nation. I almost physically applauded, alone in my living room, when it became clear that the rap-based kingdom of Pyre was build on a Graeco-Roman society of poets that now throws opulent market block parties around marble-carved speakers. I fully believed that Archaia, the home of classical music, would be a cold and oppressive place that stifles expression while commanding credit for the progress of nations it yet deems inferior. I laughed for a good five minutes at a shop in Durandis called “Three Stores Down” and then petted a friendly Ac-corgi-on. Those are exactly what they sound like.
I know that People of Note is a game for me because, having spent somewhere in the range of 15-20 hours soaking up every last bit of it, I am very certain that myself and the folks at Iridium share two common interests – terrible puns and Final Fantasy X. I’ve no doubt that the game is influenced by a number of PS1 and PS2 era JRPGs, but FFX sticks out in a number of ways. The overall structure, 3D environments with fixed camera angles and a number of story and visual moments feel very reminiscent, and there’s a penchant for devious environmental puzzles that brought back a lot of Cloister of Trials trauma. These puzzles are a big part of making your way through the game, so although they’re actually quite fair and solvable, there are mercifully also difficulty settings to sand the edge down, if needed.
The game’s turn-based combat is similarly tightly-balanced but able to be softened if you don’t resonate with what it’s doing. It’s a very clever system that leans all the way into the musical idea, presenting turns as “stanzas” that are shared by your party and the enemy and can be manipulated to give you more “beats,” change their effectiveness or otherwise go in your favour. Often, a stanza will inherit a particular musical style from a member of your party, which not only neatly changes up the battle music to add their genre flavour but gives them a power advantage, and taking this into account along with your turn order and hitting the rhythm prompts attached to most moves is crucial in succeeding.
It should be obvious that People of Note’s soundtrack is a massive part of its DNA, being a musical game, but it’s about far more than the quality of the individual tracks. The score itself is perfectly enjoyable, maybe not always a hit but good enough. What’s most impressive is how much of it there is, and how it’s all presented. Battle music changes based on location, enemies and the active player style in seamless ways, and key story beats are punctuated by full-on music videos with original songs from every genre present. Vocals are great across the board as well, with the main cast delivering convincing dialogue and their musical stand-ins nailing each performance.
Visually it’s all very impressive with sharp, cohesive art direction that offers some gorgeous sights and top-tier character and enemy designs, but not without issues. There were moments where a particular screen in an area wouldn’t render correctly and I’d be stuck walking around blindly and hoping I could bluff my way through it, and I managed to get myself stuck in weird crevices of an environment on occasion. I would’ve loved a couple more quality-of-life bits, too, like an exit to map option to cut down on the amount of backtracking involved in cleaning up all the side stuff. Overall though, this is a fantastic production that oozes quality and craft.
And it’s just as well that the craft within is recognised, rather superbly, in what might genuinely tie Portal‘s “Still Alive” as my favourite end credits sequence in a video game.
Reviewed on PS5 Pro | Review copy supplied by publisher
Great
- Unique, thematic battle system that's fun to master
- Fantastic writing and a great cast of characters
- Impressive integration of music throughout
- Puns, if you love 'em
- Absolute banger of an end credits
Not great
- Puns, if you don't
- Some minor issues that hopefully get patched up