I’m a big fan of musicals. To me, nearly anything can be improved by throwing a song into it at random intervals. It’s a good job I think that way, because otherwise, I’d be having a terrible time with People of Note.
People of Note is pretty standard for a modern RPG (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing). It takes a concept, infuses its world with it, and then slaps a button-prompt combat system on top. Here, you play as Cadence, an artist with dreams of winning this universe’s version of the X-Factor and becoming a huge star. This is the impetus which sets off your adventure.
In this world, it’s apparently perfectly natural for people to fight randomly to get exactly what you want. In my relatively short play time I’ve beaten up random Swifty analogues, bouncers, owls, and a terrifying lizard/instrument combo. Sure, we’re having a “musical” throwdown, but that lizard fully bodyslammed me and I’m pretty sure the bodyguard isn’t walking off the vinyl record I smashed on his head. All jokes aside, if you’ve played anything like Paper Mario or Clair Obscure, you’ll get the basic idea. There’s some equipment options and swappable skills, but the scale of your attacks and abilities depends on how well you can press a button in time with a prompt.
When you first start the game, you can calibrate this so the button press is exactly on the beat, but even with much fine tuning this felt very arbitrary and I never particularly felt like I was “in time” with any rhythm, even when I was scoring Perfects. In fact, it was far easier to ignore any audio cues and work purely visually, which is very off coming from a player who has a not insubstantial amount of time in rhythm games like the Persona Dancing series.
Speaking of calibrations, People of Note starts with four difficulty settings, plus the ability to turn environmental puzzles on and off. I really do appreciate this kind of range, as it lets anybody enjoy the story, regardless of preference in gameplay. At its core, the story is the important thing here, and it doesn’t disappoint.
Whilst the writing firmly places itself in a world of comedy and puns, it isn’t without heart beyond that. Even though I’m taking the train “downtone” instead of downtown, there’s a genuine beating heart underneath the humour that I very much appreciate. To get it out the way, yes, cutscenes will occasionally just be fully blown music videos. I would consider this a positive, if you do not, People of Note isn’t for you, I don’t think there’s any way of getting around that.
The visuals are divine, and of course the general audio quality is superb. Everything about the setting makes me want to learn more and spend more time here. I’m not particularly versed in music terminology, so I’m sure I’m missing a lot of the references and puns here, but it doesn’t diminish my enjoyment whatsoever. Kudos to Annapurna and Iridium for taking a set of “awful” wordplay jokes and crafting it into something genuinely engaging and charming.
I’ve never understood people that “don’t get” music. It’s such an intrinsic part of the human experience for me, and for most of the company I keep. If you are one of those people, I apologise for calling you out, but if you’re still reading this review I think you need to find a different game. If, however, you care enough about music to have opinions about certain genres, I’d recommend at least giving the trailer for this game a watch. If you can get used to the combat, this world is worth a visit for sure.
People of Note was reviewed on Xbox Series X, but is also available on Steam, Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch 2.
