 The first thing that stands out when you pop in Paladin's quest and flip on the power is holy crap this game is weird looking. I understand the need to stand out from the pack of other turn based role playing games but wow, this looks like some kind of bizarre fever dream. Look weird is fine, I like weird, but within the game's first 20 minutes you travel here, here, here, here, and here. I mean where am I trapped in Nessa's dream and earthbound? The Easter holiday pastel color palette here is also, uh, kind of uncommon. That kind of sums up the overall vibe of this game, it's just strange. Even the localized name Paladin's quest is weird because, well, there's no Paladins in this game at all. The Japanese title is Lennis, Memories of the Ancient Machine, and that makes a bit more sense since Lennis is the name of the planet you're inhabiting, and you play as Chesney, a 13 year old kid learning magic who wanders into the tower of Gavnit expecting to find some nice treasure but instead inadvertently awakens an old machine made of evil that ends up destroying the whole town. Whoops. This ancient machine inherently inhibits some kind of evil power, so of course the supervillain named Zagos wants to harness its power to rule the entire planet of Lennis. He's already conquered the southern continent and now he's after the north. The story actually turns out to be pretty interesting. You learn how and why the machine was built in the first place, and you learn the history of your main character Chesney and his companion Midia, and how they relate to characters of the past, and you befriend other characters on Lennis that have fallen victim to Zagos' attempt to conquer everything. In fact there's a total of 16 characters you can recruit to help you that all have their own personal beef with Zagos, so that not only adds a lot of replay value to the game but it makes the world of Lennis feel complete and lived in. This game may look really strange, and yeah the dialogue is nothing to write home about, but make no mistake the world of Paladin's quest is unique unto itself and the story fills it with characters and quests to make it feel fully realized. This game is definitely something different from the likes of Final Fantasy or Breath of Fire or the Lufia series. The combat system is also a little different, sure it's structured in your typical turn-based style straight out of something from the Dragon Quest series, complete with an over-the-shoulder viewpoint with your party consisting of a total of four playable characters at once, but there's no MP in this game. Magic spells cost HP instead, and not only that, there's no healing spells here. Well that would make sense since you'd be spending HP to gain HP, so yeah there's only potions here. All the elemental magic stuff is here too, all the Captain Planet stuff. Yay, even Heart is here! There's eight total elements and you level up magic simply by using it, so yeah it's like Secret of Mana where you grind and grind and spam the same attacks over and over in order to power up your magic. You can at least combine elements with certain spells so both elements will level up at the same time, so at least there's that. Still in terms of combat this definitely feels like an early Super Nintendo title, meaning you walk very slowly and the encounter rate is very high, so yeah Paladin's quest can be a grind fest. One major positive that makes this particular grind fest worth it however is the soundtrack. It's composed by Kohei Tanaka, who is responsible for the music and games like Alundra, The Violinist of Hamelin, and the Sakura Wars games. The music and Paladin's quest really caught me off guard, the whole soundtrack throughout the game beginning to end helps set this game apart, and it definitely helps you come to terms with the bizarre visual style as well if that makes any sense. It's definitely original sounding so it makes the world of Lennis feel more complete. Paladin's quest got a sequel that was only released in Japan titled Lennis 2, Fuin no Shito. There's a translation available on romhacking.net and while I haven't played that much of it I can say that if you liked Paladin's quest you will love Lennis 2. It's got a similar vibe but it's way way more polished in every sense. The graphics are cleaned up so they're not as harsh looking, the combat is more streamlined, and the music is just as good. I'd say if you're not afraid of trying Super Famicom RPGs with English patches is well worth your time. But what about the North American release? Paladin's quest is that worth playing today? It's hard to say. I love the music and being able to recruit a bunch of different party members is cool. It kind of reminds me of 7th Saga or the Genesis version of Shadowrun in that regard. But the game is just such a grind at times. Dungeons go on and on and let's face it the visual design here is just so dang goofy I can't get over it. If you haven't played stuff like the SNES Luffy games or Breath of Fire games you'll want to check out those first. But hey it's a lot more worthwhile than something like Lagoon or Seeker of the Stars. I'd put Paladin's quest near the same level as something like 7th Saga. It's not for everyone and it's a far cry from the classics but if you've played all those to death and you're looking for something truly different and unique then it's worth checking out.