People of Note Shows Off Its Musical RPG Uniqueness With Great Next Fest Demo - Preview

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Saying that I play a lot of RPGs/JRPGs is a bit of an understatement. I love these games, with their realized worlds, meaningful stories, and detailed combat mechanics to push the genre forward. I have seen a lot of them in my day, with tons of unique titles gracing the scene. However, I haven’t seen anything quite like People of Note, and I think it has lots of potential.

Ahead of the game getting a demo for the Steam Next Fest, I had a chance to check it out and see how it has progressed. I did play it while I was at the Tokyo Game Show last year, so this isn’t my first time diving into it. However, it’s a new location and a new part of the story, and I got to try it on the Steam Deck. So, with myself already curious about the game, I just had to see what it was like on my own, and I’m glad I did.

For a little background, People of Note is an upcoming musical RPG that revolves around, you guessed it, music. You play as a woman named Cadence, who is putting together a band to take part in a giant music contest and win. In the demo, we are dropped right into chapter 2, where we set off to the land that is all based around rock music to find the first member of our makeshift band. And throughout the short demo, we get to take pardon multiple battles, meet our new member, Fret, witness a musical number, and get sucked into helping him defend his home.

So, as we look through the city to find our new member, we get sucked into a battle. A band of Country music outlaws is attacking the city, looking for a key. That’s when Fret comes in, and we realize we have to have him in our band. I am really enjoying the story so far. The voice acting and singing are great, and I was quite intrigued with the world and story after playing through and learning about Fret's past. After playing through the demo, I was left curious as to how the story would continue and how Cadence would bring the band together to compete.

One of the things I really loved about People of Note was how much they were going in with the idea of basing the entire world around different genres of music. Each city is themed by a different genre. Whether rock, pop, or EDM, each city is designed to foster the characteristics of that genre. Fret’s home is all based around rock music, and it shows. From the people all around the city wearing characteristically rock outfits, to the desolate land with graffiti logos marking shops, it’s just hard to see it as any other genre. There are even little districts for the sub-genres like grunge and punk.

The turn-based combat is pretty traditional, but of course, it’s all themed around music. We take our turn first, with enemies attacking after, and we have normal attacks, abilities, and mashups to take advantage of. All of our attacks can be enhanced by pressing a button at the right time, mimicking rhythm, games, and our abilities can be greatly enhanced, depending on which music is at the forefront in battle. The music is constantly switching and going into each other, and I can’t imagine all the painstaking time it took to record and put together all of these pieces. However, the music is fantastic, and there's no denying that.

There were a few times I would say the beat of the attacks just didn't match the beat of the music, which made it tougher to get the rhythm right to maximize damage. It is still visualized nicely, though, so I didn't have much trouble hitting it despite the beat.

It's also a dream on the Steam Deck so far. Even though this is a demo, with a few changes to the settings, I was getting almost 60 FPS the whole time with great visual quality. I was able to keep the quality settings on High while also bringing the rendering scale to 90, and it looks and performs great. The performance isn't necessarily indicative of the full release, since this is a demo, but that means it could only get better, which is great.

Overall, I walked away from this demo even more sure of how unique People of Note is. The entire game being structured and fully based around everything to do with music is great. Seeing just how the world is being modeled after the popular genres and subgenres is just a treat to the eyes, with the characters encapsulating their respective genres as well. The combat is quite traditional, but with some refinement, it could be wonderful. This is one of the more unique RPGs I have ever played, and I can't wait to see how the full game will shake up.

People of Note can be wishlisted ahead of its release this year.

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