There’s nothing better than a holiday RPG

With vacation comes a big choice: What game should I focus on during the trip? I thought about grinding the harder levels of Super Meat Boy 3DBut I was looking for something cooler. I could go into more Slay the Spire IIBut I already know that this is a game I will be playing for a long time. I wanted something I could get lost in and finish in a little over a week. People of observationa new music-focused RPG from Annapurna Interactive and Iridium Studios, turned out to be exactly what I needed.

In the game, you will play the role of aspiring pop singer Cadence. What begins as a journey to outdo a popular boy band turns into a sprawling adventure where the fate of the world is ultimately decided by Cadence and the ragtag band she forms together. But in People of observationEverything is related to the music in some way. Each main character gets a fully animated musical number. The game’s areas are designed in the style of different musical genres. Most lines of text include some sort of musical term or pun. I even found a sign near the birdcage displaying the words “Free Bird.” Sometimes all the music references seem a bit over the top, but I respect the commitment.

Music is probably the most important during turn-based battles. Naturally, it was backed by great tunes – I was constantly tapping my feet during battles. But for maximum effectiveness, after selecting the move, you’ll often have to press the time button well (indicated by a ring closing on a circle, as in Nintendo DS Classic Elite win agents) to take maximum damage or restore maximum health. When it’s your party’s turn (technically, a “clip”), you can also see exactly how many moves you have and what enemies are planning to do in a musical crew at the bottom of the screen, so there’s a lot of strategy involved to maximize what you’re doing.

You can play your characters’ moves in any order, so I often spend time mentally planning the most effective way to boost my characters and deal damage. You can also customize your team using Song Stones and Remix Stones, which work similarly Final Fantasy VIIThe Materia system by allowing you to assign specific moves to characters and grant those moves useful perks.

Everything comes together during the Presidents’ tenure, which I’ve almost always believed only Hard enough on the game’s standard difficulty. More than once, I’d lose a boss battle by a turn or two to win, meaning I could beat it by swapping out my song gems or spending a few minutes getting to another level. Some of the boss designs are excellent too, including a fun nod to Dragon Ball series. (The character uses a move called “Kamehayeehaw”.)

Not everything is successful. The game takes a few hours before its systems actually unlock. There are a bunch of puzzles in the game, but they mostly boil down to flipping the switches in the correct order, which gets tedious. The story is a pretty typical RPG journey, and I often wove conversations into it so I could get back to exploring and combat.

But none of these issues bothered me much. During my break, I found myself grabbing my Steam Deck every spare moment I could to fight some battles or advance the story, and I managed to beat the game in about 20 hours, meaning I finished it right before I got back to work. Yes, it has a lot of familiar RPGs, but it condenses them into a manageable package. As a way for me to relax, People of observation Hit the perfect tone.

^{People of observation Available now on Nintendo Switch 2, PC, PS5, and Xbox Series}