People of Note | PS5 Review

Who doesn’t remember those glorious days of the PS1 when the JRPG reigned supreme? When every trip to the local video store contained some unheard of new world to explore in depth, with simple but fun turn-based combat at its core? Certainly, Iridium Studios does. People of Note is an absolutely dedicated love letter to that era of video games, for better and worse. And a love letter to music.

Rock On

Think of your standard fantasy RPG, but instead of feuding medieval kingdoms, each region is dominated by a musical genre. Everyone that lives there loves that music, the cities are designed with the theme in mind, and every fabric of culture orients itself around those wondrous tunes. This is the world of Note, and you’ll come to know many of its people. I hope you liked that pun, because People of Note has a full orchestra of them.

Cadence wants to be a star, standing on stage under the lights. After being dismissed by the judges of Chordia’s big music competition, her radio gives her a brilliant idea. To win the contest, she has to give the people something new and put together a mashup band. So begins her travels to assemble a group composed of rock, EDM, and rap.

Pop Star

These genre adventures are absolutely the highlight of the game, being introduced to new worlds such as the stone and dust of the rock n’ roll region. The party members you acquire each have their own short narrative to get through before joining the band, and they’re all people you’d wanna hang out with. The writing is simple and humorous, and I mean those as a compliment. Everything about this world is delightful, and I’d be surprised if most people aren’t cracking a smile often while playing. In fact, I think this would be a brilliant game to play with the whole family.

Now, I do think the overall plot that develops in the background gets to be rather boring. In fact, it falls into the same pitfalls and tropes of those PS1 era JRPGs. An overly long final series of dungeons where character development falls by the wayside, seemingly endless boss battles, and a finale that may or may not require the unbeatable power of friendship in the face of a god. My eyes were glazing over in the final few hours of the game as I struggled to care.

Electric Death Music

Combat is essential in any turn-based RPG, and People of Note is no exception. In many ways it’s your standard turn-based affair, and you won’t be surprised to see attacks come with small rhythm button presses for increased damage. Though in this case, it’s a stanza-based combat system, and each stanza comes with a genre attached. Not only does this remix the battle music; it provides a massive boost for the associated party member. Combined with the game’s Beat Points that slowly recharge each turn, there’s a decent amount of strategy involved in when to (or not to) use certain abilities. Do you waste the BP on a needed heal, or is it worth risking the damage because you know the next turn will let you unleash an extra devastating Pop attack?

Outside of the laborious final areas of the game, this combat system remains fresh and fun throughout. New enemies like Lyre Wolves and Orcarinas pop up with a good frequency, which lend a good pace to the adventure. There are even Puzzle Battles scattered throughout, where the game assigns you specific skills and specific rules to figure out how to win. They’re a blast.

Rap Game

Abilities are slotted into weapons as Songstones, but you can only have so many equipped at a time. Some are restricted by genre, but many are not. It lets you play with the builds of your various bandmates, for instance I turned the rocker Fret into my dedicated healer. Nothing makes you ready for battle quite like a guitar solo, after all. You do get more slots as you upgrade your weapons, but the arrangements are different every time. So you have to go in there and readjust your Songstones and the accompanying boost stones. It gets annoying as hell having to do this every hour or two, and I found myself wishing desperately this was simplified. It could’ve been interesting if the upgrade slots were laid out in an interesting puzzle fashion, but they’re not. They’re just arranged slightly differently and it messes up your flow big time.

Dungeons are loaded with environmental puzzles that take you right back to the brain-powered expectations of the 32- and 64-bit eras. I didn’t expect that coming in, and it was a pleasant surprise. Some can get pretty tricky, and I was pleased to see Iridium respected the intelligence of its audience. Although if you loathe puzzles, you can turn them off.

Never Stop Never Stopping

If the musical theming and rhythm combat didn’t tip you off, People of Note is a musical. Every few hours, you get a full-blown 2-4 minute music video where a character pours their heart out. What blew me away is the genre variety, as not many musicals can pull off a great rap song and a compelling country song in one story, not including the many others. There’s a boy band number for crying out loud!

These felt like massive rewards for finishing sections of the game, and I guarantee a few of them will have you jamming right along. The country music video is so outrageously funny I can’t wait for my friends to see it, especially cuz it’s also just a good tune. In an oversight that blows my mind, however, you can’t view these music videos from the main menu after unlocking them. Did the developers assume these were one-hit wonders? I wanna rock out, man.

I should also note that the game had some bugs. Cadence can get caught on geometry, especially in the latter half of the game. This requires reloading, though granted the game keeps several autosaves going at any given time, so it only costs you a few seconds. I’ve also had combat inputs become non-responsive once or twice. It could be me being stupid in a way no playtester ever had been, but I also got soft-locked on two different puzzles. I’m sure all of this will get cleared up with patches, but it all bears mentioning.

Exit Stage Left

So, if you love JRPGs of yesteryear, you should absolutely pick up People of Note. The last third of its 20-25 hour runtime will try your patience, but you’re probably already familiar with that if you’ve experienced this genre of game before. The journey of Cadence and her band is a fun romp for most of the game’s running time, as are the many places you’ll see. Musical RPGs certainly aren’t common, and those videos will seriously make you smile. Take a tour around the world of Note; it’s worth seeing something new.

To hear me talk more about People of Note, be sure to listen to the April 8th, 2026 episode of The Gaming Outsider Podcast around the 1:07:15 time stamp.

This review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy of People of Note. It is also available on Xbox, Switch 2, and PC via Steam or the Epic Game Store.