People of Note preview: Expedition 33 meets KPop Demon Hunters

Shakespeare once wrote, “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” This is certainly true in People of Note, but the players are musicians and almost everyone on said stage is trying to kill you. Developed by Iridium Studios and published by Annapurna Interactive, the turn-based RPG was described during Tokyo Game Show as “Clair Obscur meets KPop Demon Hunters.” Slated for release later this year, a recent digital preview event attended by Polygon and subsequent demo showed off more of the melodic fun the game has to offer.

Jason Wishnov, a self-described theater kid whose previous credits include There Came an Echo and voice acting in the Danganronpa series, serves as the game’s creative director. During the preview presentation, Wishnov shared that the game’s biggest inspiration by far is Final Fantasy 9, though the true heart of People of Note is music. Wishnov described the title as “a musical story about blending genres and finding the purpose behind your voice,” which will contain entire “Disney-style” musical numbers.

People of Note stars Cadence (played by Heather Gonzalez, the voice of Mineru in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment), a pop star on the hunt for new musical inspiration after being shut out from the Noteworthy Song Contest. The demo centered on chapter two of the game, bringing Cadence to the rock n' roll city of Durandis to seek out new sounds.

Musical beef is rampant in the world of Note, with a variety of artists competing to prove their genre is the best. When I began my adventure in the dusty desert lands of Durandis, I immediately encountered a band being heckled for daring to play punk music in the Metal District.

That doesn’t mean no one in town was friendly, however. Though my ability to roam only went so far, the world still felt vast and alive, dotted with secret chests and amusingly-named NPCs like a somewhat pretentious guy hanging around the library simply called “Guy who reads a lot.” My personal favorite discovery was a resident and his accorgion: a half-corgi, half-accordion creature that I pet every time I walked by.

A group of country-leaning musicians called Homestead have turned a low-stakes beef into social disruption, terrorizing citizens in their search for a special key that could play a pivotal role in an upcoming Harmonic Convergence event. My glimpse into the game didn’t offer too much elaboration on this, but the game’s website describes it as something “playing havoc with the world’s musical energies.”

Fret, a now-reclusive rock star played by Godhead guitarist and singer Jason Charles Miller (who composed most of the game’s music), is also embroiled in his own ongoing drama with his former bandmate Quincy. After a falling out over Fret’s unwillingness to experiment with other sounds, Quincy — who now goes by Freq — left to join the band The Osmiums, leaving Fret with no desire to ever play again.

After a chance encounter with him during a Homestead attack, Cadence becomes determined to start a band with Fret, mashing up their pop and rock sounds to create something entirely new for the song contest. This is where one of the full musical numbers Wishnov mentioned came into play, with the duo butting heads via their respective musical styles, eventually combining them into a duet. Though this cutscene wasn’t interactive, their pop-rock sound (which they jokingly call prock) was still quite engaging, immediately perking me up at my desk.

Cadence and Fret strike a deal — she’ll help in the fight against Homestead if Fret aids in her quest for the perfect song. Before they set off on their journey, though, they needed to travel to Osmium’s headquarters to guarantee protection of Durandis in Fret’s absence.

The band’s headquarters is one of many dungeons players will encounter throughout the game. It’s filled with a blend of environmental puzzles and combat, with the duo facing off against various rockers and even a few literal metalheads (that is, giant heads made out of metal). The puzzles are simple but clever. The ones I played involved moving and chaining lasers together in order to activate different switches. If players aren’t big puzzlers, these can be turned off in the game’s settings.

People of Note is, at its core, about two things: fighting evil and creating bodacious tunes, often at the same time. Its turn-based combat involves rhythm game mechanics, but there’s a lot more strategy at play than simply hitting buttons in time. Turns are called stanzas, and a stanza’s time signature determines how many actions you and the enemy can take during each one. When more than one genre of player is in the band, musical energies are in flux, and each stanza will take a different style. When a bandmate’s style is active, they get a boost in power to all their moves.

Each musician has a basic attack and a set of abilities, the latter of which costs BP, a resource gained each stanza. These are all framed around performance: Fret served largely as a healer for the team, playing sick guitar riffs to regain health for himself or allies, while Cadence was more attack driven, like her move Opening Act, which dealt significantly more damage if it was the first action taken in a turn.

Performing these moves is where the game’s rhythm elements come into play, with on-beat button presses determining the exact effectiveness of each one. You won’t completely fail if you colossally mis-time these, but a perfectly executed move is certainly worth the effort.

A party member’s moves can be changed around with Songstones they find and buy throughout the world, and these can be further altered with remix crystals. I could remix one of Cadence’s attack abilities to cost less BP, or do 40% more damage if it’s performed as the last action of a stanza. Musician stats can also be tweaked through their gear, both in terms of their instruments and apparel, like a health-raising accessory I found cleverly called a Simon Cowl.

During the demo, I only had a two-musician team of Fret and Cadence, but the number will grow over time. The presentation teased Synthia and Vox, an EDM and hip-hop artist respectively, as part of the eventual band. Even just the duo I played with had some fun synergies, though, like Cadence’s ability to send allies BP and a strong offensive move from Fret that requires a completely full BP meter to be utilized. After receiving enough damage, musicians can also team up to perform a powerful special attack called a genre mash-up.

Combat difficulty can be tweaked in the game’s settings, but even on the recommended difficulty some fights are no joke. Though most combat I got through with no issue, I must admit a showdown with Freq at the end of the dungeon did take me three attempts before I finally managed to wear the rocker down.

Part of this difficulty stems from a boss fight mechanic called crescendo, which makes opponents slowly gain power and makes every turn count even more than usual — the longer they live, the more you suffer. Freq also had some interesting tricks up his sleeve that complicated things, like manipulating the time signature or muting the first beat of a stanza to make the move less powerful.

People of Note leans heavily on music references and puns for a lot of its humor, but not in a way that feels grating — if anything, the game sometimes seems to revel in making tongue-in-cheek jokes that are exceedingly on the nose. Currency is called Groove, for instance, and Wishnov teased an eventual quest where the group will literally have to get their Groove back. Players also earn vinyls after fights, and can trade them with a hipster who endlessly espouses the medium’s superiority.

People of Note looks to be both a love letter to music and a commentary on it, celebrating all of its sounds while also calling out pretentiousness and pointless genre rivalries. It’s very self-aware while also managing to be quite genuine, and I was left wondering what song Cadence will wind up with in the end.