new musical indie RPG struggles to find its identity

People of Note‘s central idea that art should be unique and new, not mass-produced to give people what they want, should tie its different character arcs together. But the idea is accepted as an immutable truth, one that The Right People know instinctively, which means it’s never questioned or explored beyond imparting that “art has to innovate.” This leaves most of the character stories feeling like disjointed narratives. Sections of the story aim to explore the challenges of creating, the tension between artistic expression and making something people want. But peppered between those are long-winded moments about unity or trusting yourself made trite by having no emotional anchor in People of Note‘s cast.

It’s frustrating to experience. Fret, voiced by Jason Charles Miller (of Godhead and Final Fantasy XIV fame), is an aging rockstar and the first person to join Cadence’s party. He lives in the city of rock, which has since split into various neighborhoods of subgenres, and feels left behind by the fragmentation of his beloved genre. Why, he wonders, does someone have to build their identity around metal, grunge, or punk when they could just love rock ‘n’ roll in all its forms? The underlying sentiment, which occasionally comes through in his first duet with Cadence, is that rock is a lifestyle. But the concept gets lost in talk about unity and harmony, talk that doesn’t really go anywhere or have much to do with Cadence’s story (or anyone else’s).

Several of the big set-piece songs throughout the game are held back by a fixation on overly simple lyrics and ideas that give you you little to work with, like in the lament “Imposter,” which is meant to set up the inner conflict of Synthia, a DJ from the EDM-themed city of Lumina. The chorus tells you Synthia feels like an imposter and fears everyone will know they don’t belong, but not why, or why staying in this role despite those feelings is important. The other stanzas don’t really tell you anything. There’s an unspoken assumption that because “imposter syndrome” is so widely known, you’ll just get it and feel a connection. And maybe you will! That’s no reason not to expound on what it means to Synthia, though.

“Musical RPG” is still a comparatively new subgenre with room to grow. People of Note does treat its subject matter with more complexity than, say, Stray Gods did in 2023, but it also shows how a shift in thinking about lyrics as narrative device is needed for games like these to reach their full potential. And that likely has to come from outside of games. In one Steam news update, Iridium mentioned how EDM doesn’t lend itself to emotional songwriting. Yet plenty of examples of EDM-adjacent tracks that manage to pair a club beat with deeper lyrics exist, like most of Martin Garrix’s duets. And while People of Note‘s pop-rock segments are some of its weakest, modern stage productions like Dear Evan Hansen prove you can do a lot with the genre if you treat lyrics as more than just a vehicle for rhymes (and win a lot of awards for it).

People of Note does pull off this balance well sometimes. Cadence’s song “Under the Lights” says a lot about who she is, despite its repetition and simplicity, and sets up a conflict that’d feel shallow if it were expressed just in spoken words. It also changes in important ways during refrains throughout the game, some of the only character development she gets. And there’s “Spitting Image,” the rap theme for Vox, a prince and a “man of the people” whose vision for leading his kingdom is vastly different from the one held by his more traditional mother. It’s a good candidate for one of the game’s best songs and a standard for what this kind of songwriting should aim for. In just two minutes, you get a detailed understanding of his relationship with his mother, the state of their kingdom, and the conflicting views of power and social structure at play in a well-written song (with an excellent beat). It’s hard not to think Iridium could’ve avoided this gap between confident and meandering storytelling by interrogating the game’s central premise with some rigor, creating room to explore what each character’s perspective and circumstances can bring to their art — another concept People of Note flirts with, but never commits to.

Damning as these criticisms sound, People of Note still has its high points — the spoken and vocal performances are major standouts — and even the in-between bits have their merits. Fret’s chapter might be one of my least favorites in the game. But I still enjoyed the silly conflict between metalheads and country stans, and the writing is always high-quality and on-point, despite the frequency of puns. The tempo (no pun intended) is balanced so well that nothing ever feels like wasted time; you’re free to engage with, or ignore, non-scripted battles as you see fit; and you can completely remove environmental puzzles to get through dungeons even faster.

Battle music is also a big highlight the further you progress. Each party member has a genre preference that, depending on the turn, will combine with the area’s theme and make a variation, and there are some fantastic melody variations. Music plays a surprisingly minor role in combat, though. Outside of timing your attacks to the theme’s rhythm so you deal more damage, much of the musical component is just set dressing. Boss fights have a crescendo meter that fills with each turn, and once it reaches a certain point, the enemy uses a strong attack. Crescendos in music are climaxes after a build-up of intensity, but in People of Note, there’s no accompanying change in tempo or pattern anywhere else in the battle. Harmonies between musical styles provide passive effects, but you have little creative freedom to make something new or unique with them.

Image: Iridium Studios/Annapurna Interactive

You do have freedom with your skill setups, however, which is partly where People of Note‘s combat sets itself apart. Every character can equip accessories called Songstones, with different possible combinations depending on the equipped weapon. One might have two slots for standard skills, while another may include slots that let you equip auxiliary Songstones that come with some kind of support buff, like enhancing the connected skill’s power. It’s very Final Fantasy in its flexibility; while some characters have unique skills, any party member can specialize as a healer, attacker, or support unit depending on your needs.

RPGs with action order bars usually make manipulating that order their primary feature, but People of Note treats it like a planning tool. You can see which melody will play during a stanza (a turn), and the core of each encounter is strategizing so the right character has the right buffs (and enough battle points, also reminiscent of classic RPGs) to use their most powerful attacks when their melody starts to play. Each team has “beats” (actions) based on how many people are in their party, and deciding whether to spend time taking down a tough foe or reduce their turn count by focusing on the mobs adds a welcome bit of extra tension, too. Music might be an afterthought, but People of Note is still one of the more enjoyable adaptations of traditional RPG combat in recent years (without being completely inaccessible to those with less responsive reflex times, the way Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was).

To borrow People of Note‘s tendency to treat everything in musical terms, the game is like attending a concert. The setlist has some crummy bits, and maybe it’s not always the best version of what it could be. But even when People of Note struggles to know itself, it’s still clear this game was forged with a vision to deliver something meaningful and distinct. And, sure, those efforts don’t always hit the right note. But in a landscape littered with imitations and crowd pleasers, the effort itself is worth acknowledging and worthy of praise.

People of Note is available now on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X The game was reviewed on Windows PC using a prerelease download code provided by Annapurna Interactive. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.