People Of Note Review – A Rhythm RPG That Tries Something Different

People of Note tries to do something different by blending rhythm mechanics with RPG combat, and when it works, it’s genuinely compelling. The problem is that it doesn’t always come together, with inconsistent timing and pacing issues holding it back. Still, there’s enough here to make it worth paying attention to, especially if you’re looking for something a little outside the norm.

Game Name: People Of Note
Platform(s): PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC
Reviewed On: PC
Genre: RPG
Developer(s): Iridium Studios
Publisher(s): Annapurna Interactive
Release Date: April 7th, 2026
Price: $24.99

People of Note starts with Cadence, who talks about her dream of being on a stage under the lights. She has an appointment to audition for Noteworthy. Noteworthy is a competition of musical talent where the victor takes home prestige, but also the key to Chordia. Councilman Sharp dislikes her performance and makes her go home empty-handed. After a word from a new musician named Arc, she is motivated to get a golden note from one of the councilmen to be able to grab a chance at the spotlight anyway she can. At the end of Chordia, she gets the golden note, but now she has to find a new sound that isn’t just Pop. She decides to adventure to find a new sound from one of the other nations of Note.

Journeying Through Note

Cadence wants to find a new sound that combines a bunch of different song genres. To do that requires her to find people who will join up with her and help out with the performance in Noteworthy. The loop to find people generally has you go around the nation, learn about this individual from talking to NPCs on the streets, or fulfil goals that progress the narrative. Once you find the person to join Cadence’s band, they usually do a full music video cinematic that helps establish their character and their song genre.

Each town you visit has shops you can enter. These shops let you buy equipment, accessories, and songstones. Towns also have a variety of NPCs that have very enjoyable dialogue. Iridium Studios has a major love of memes, references, and puns. You can find a lot of things from other media if you pay attention to these NPCs. It made it very satisfying to talk to other NPCs since either they would talk about something important for your visit to the town, or they would make a reference to another form of media.

People of Note traversal is mainly walking and using abilities to close gaps or solve puzzles. Like other JRPGs of the PS1 and PS2 era, the maps are sculpted locations where you can only walk to specific locations. It isn’t an open experience of being able to go wherever you want; it uses only a small number of entrances and exits on these maps.

On Tour With People of Note

Combat in People of Note is turn-based. The number of actions you have will be the time signature. Your characters have a basic attack move, but their skills are based on the songstones they have equipped. When you do an action, you will need to press the left mouse button at the time all the lines intersect with the circle. Skills will sometimes require you to hit two or more prompts in succession at the right time. On attack skills, there will be a number next to the name with a range. In most RPGs, moves will perform a dice roll to determine the amount of damage a move will actually do. That dice roll is replaced here with the music prompts. If you do the prompts perfectly, damage will be at the max. If you do the prompts terribly, then the damage will be minimal.

The preview only used two characters in the game. The full game was a whole different beast since it has all four characters playable once you visit all the nations of Note. Builds were pretty customizable, so I had two characters for damage and two characters for support. Late in the game, I changed it so all four characters could support, but still focused on the two characters, Vox and Cadence, for their damage. Vox, I gave him a remix stone that allowed him to use his moves as Area of Effect skills. This provided him with mob crowd control. Cadence, I focused her kit on single target damage. Synthia and Fret, I would focus on support or heals depending on the enemy’s situation. If we were fighting a boss, I would have Vox use skills to give more BP and support to Cadence, and vice versa for enemy mobs.

Songstones are the way you will customise your character. There are character-specific songstones that are abilities for them specifically. There are also remix songstones, which are modifiers for the songstones that are equipped. It requires BP. BP are represented by musical notes next to your character’s lifebar. The amount of BP you have available to you will be the musical notes that are white.

The remix songstones will be linked to the songstones. You can have some songstones equipped with two different remix songstones. However, one thing to note is that each weapon has a different setup of its songstone system. So when you buy a new weapon to equip, make sure to go to your songstones and hope the remix stones don’t get too messed up.

Eventually, you will get mashup meters for your characters. You will need to unlock Mashup moves for your party, which is generally finishing their arcs in the game. Each Mashup move uses both characters’ turns but counts as only one action in the Stanza. It also requires that both characters have their mashup meter filled to use the Mashup move. Late in the game, you can do optional quests to get three-person Mashup moves.

Under The Lights

People of Note is a visually stylized video game. If I were to explain the way it looks to someone, I would say it’s very similar to a Pixar aesthetic. Very colorful backgrounds, and lots of easter eggs on the designs of every character and store. That said, the gameplay segments are more like the old PS2 Pixar video game adaptations, where it looks like the movie, but it still has compromises in the motions of the characters. That all changes, though, when the music videos start.

People of Note has a lot of high-production music videos that introduce songs from the game. These are generally accompanied by a strong upgrade to the visuals of the characters and movements. Similar to games like Final Fantasy X, they are like the high-quality cutscene that then makes the gameplay models look like toys in comparison.

My computer was able to run the game at a full 120 FPS with 1080p resolution. Unlike other rhythm games, it doesn’t have the timing messed up by going 120 FPS. I did try the game on Steam Deck, and it runs between 30-50 FPS. It might not be the best game for on-the-go on the Steam Deck, at least. I do wonder how it runs on Nintendo Switch, since it could be a fun game to do some of the side quests when you are on the go.

Improvements From Preview

Initially I had trouble on the preview build with using my Dualsense controller, which I keep plugged into my PC. I am pleased to announce that it worked perfectly this time around. Though one thing to note is that the controller icons did not match up with the PlayStation symbols. It used Xbox controller icons. I had no trouble since I use both types of controllers regularly.

The next issue I had with the combat particularly, is the sound cues. People of Note is heavily influenced by music and audio. It has sound cues for the rhythm of skills and normal attacks. Having the full team does actually change the way sound cues work for all the characters, since it is also from the battle music of each region. That said, some skills have great sound cues like Fret’s headbang or Synthia’s Compressor. Other ones, however, do not work very well since they will make you a little late, like the D.D. Revolution skill from Cadence. So, you have to use the visual cues instead of the audio ones. Combat is a lot more satisfying in the full release.

There is a jukebox you can find in the game that lets you play any background audio from the game. You can even listen to the music from the music videos; you cannot watch the music video, though, without reloading a save. Please, Iridium Studios, give me an option to watch cutscenes back at the end of the game.

The Final Cadence

People of Note is a phenomenal experience with a lot of love and passion for music and media in general. It shows a lot of love for PS1 and PS2 era video games. I do think it has some pacing issues with some character narratives that I wish made it a little longer with characters like Synthia before we get their arc. Otherwise, I loved the story and how the tension of the band being together both made them better and worse. It has some big highlights like the music videos and some of the boss fights! Combat became more and more fun with each new songstone you grabbed.

It also gave you an incentive to do side stuff to get more songstones and customize your characters even further. This is definitely a game I would recommend to gamers who loved playing games back in the 90s and 2000s. It is also a great game just to play through. With a little over 20 hours of game time, it’s a solid experience with nothing feeling like it drags. Also, make sure to stay til the end of the credits. That end credits song is probably one of the best ways to get me to stay for your credits.

People of Note will release digitally for PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5 and Xbox (X|S, Windows), and Nintendo Switch 2 on April 7th, 2026.

If you enjoyed this review, explore more of our in-depth video game reviews across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.

Review Disclosure Statement: People of Note was provided to us by Annapurna Interactive for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy.