It’s a good time to be a pop-based musical or a turn-based RPG. After all, both Kpop Demon Hunters and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 showed the world how they can each have potential to be huge critical and commercial successes. Which is good news for People of Note, as it happens to be both of these things.
That’s a weird genre clash, maybe, but the entirety of People of Note is a genre clash. As stated, it’s a musical RPG, one that combines turn-based battles with a rhythm game used to boost attacks. But the game’s story is entirely about a pop singer who forms a band from different genres to make a new sound, setting out to recruit a rock guitarist, an EDM DJ and a rapper. All this takes place in a world based on music, where each city is a different genre.
If this all sounds silly, it is. People of Note is entirely aware of its goofy premise and plays it up for everything it’s worth. Nothing in this game evades being some kind of musical pun. Your party all have musical terms for names (Cadence, Fret, Synthia, Vox). Your equipment has names like Linkin Parka and Tom Petticoat. Enemies are often hybrids of animals and instruments such as the Orcarina and Lyre Wolf. A set of optional collectibles is a game-length side quest that seemingly exists just to make one big joke about a specific musician (I won’t say who, I want you to figure that out yourself).
Of course, this being a musical game, it has an excellent soundtrack. Every location has its own genre, even areas like a forest (folk) or the coast (choral). Battle music gets remixed each turn into one of the four genres of your party members, giving them a boost in the process, and these genre blends always hit hard.
This is where the RPG mechanics could have been improved a little. While the music giving your character a boost is a fun mechanic, I found it didn’t help that much as you rarely got to use more than one of their abilities per turn and still had to use the “wrong” members too.
I did like the battle system otherwise though. This is where more direct comparison to Expedition 33 comes in, as it also eschews a standard MP system in favor of an ability point management system. It didn’t quite get to the level of stacking passives for infinite AP like in Sandfall’s game, but the feel was similar. It also did a great job with making each member feel distinct and connected to their genre – Cadence is straightforward DPS, Fret is a band-focused support, Synthia remixes the turn order bar and Vox issues damaging put-downs.
People of Note is a game that doesn’t quite get as deep as other turn-based RPGs, and it’s certainly not as long. But as someone who loves goofy musical adventures, I feel it hits all the right notes.
People of Note is available now for PC, PS5, Switch 2 and Xbox Series X/S.