Why would you even want to play THIS game when the SNES has so many better RPGs available?
So, you're playing as a guy called Chezni (best worst name ever?) who's a student at some sort of magic academy. There, he ventures into some old tower and happens to find and release some ancient evil which promptly knocks out Chezni (why didn't it kill him, dammit?), trashes the whole academy and wanders off to... do something... I guess...
Chezni's teacher, a little shaken up over the destruction of his academy and, you know, the countless students who died, sends you off to go fix things and defeat the ancient evil you released. Sounds like a good plan, right? Sending off a 13-year old to kill some ancient evil dragon-leviathan-abomination thingy that just nearly killed him a moment ago? No?
And so begins the tale of Paladin's Quest.
Along the way, you'll meet some girl who will be the second main character and constant party member. You'll have to fill the other 2 slots in your party with some random mercenaries that can be hired for money.
You can only equip weapons and armor for Chezni and the girl (which is probably even a good thing, given that the menus are so horrible). All the mercenaries carry their own equipment, which means that they usually become useless after about 2 dungeons since they're simply ill-equipped, hence you'll have to ditch them and go find some stronger mercenaries to use for the next 2 dungeons.
It's completely impossible to develop any attachment to these characters. Chezni is just a wimpy idiot, the girl is bland (I even forgot her name, see?) and your other 2 party members will change every 2 hours or so.
But that's the least of the problems this game has. There are far worse things to be found. For instance, the graphics. I really can't believe that this is a SNES game. The graphics look more like what you'd expect from an average NES game. I mean, come on. And don't even get me started on the colors. Calling the coloring "strikingly ugly" is being gentle.
And then there are the menus. Oh lord... I've wasted so much time on navigating through these ugly, black and white menus just to do simple things like using healing potions or equipping my two main characters that it's not even funny anymore.
Whenever one of my characters was low on HP and I had to access the menu to heal him, I was like: "Oh please... NOT AGAIN!"
Seriously though, the menu is easily the worst thing about the entire game. Weapon / Item names are indecipherable due to a limit of (I think) 5 letters per item and the menus themselves are slow as hell and very inconvenient to use.
Another big letdown are some of the boss fights. The bosses in general are not memorable and sometimes look like regular enemies. Even worse, there are instances where you have to battle 3 identical monsters that might as well have been regular random encounter enemies (f.e. one time 3 Soldier / Ninja guys who look exactly the same, don't get names and have no real importance for the story at all are sold off as bosses). If there's anything I hate, it's gotta be cheap and anticlimactic boss fights - and unfortunately this game has too many of those.
I do like the boss fight music though (it's not fitting for an epic fight at all, but I love it anyway for some weird reason).
Speaking of the soundtrack: It's mostly forgettable, but there are some pieces which I actually like. Still, the soundtrack as a whole is sub-par at best.
What I also kind of like is the fact that the game uses no MP. Casting spells costs HP instead. This can be annoying at times since you'll have to heal more often (meaning that you have to access the crappy menu of doom after every 2-3 battles), but I still think it's somewhat innovative - but also rather impractical at times.
But well, at least they didn't just copy/paste everything from popular RPGs but came up with some ideas of their own instead. Thumbs up for that. The execution of these ideas ranges from nail-bitingly horrible (mercenaries) to decent / tolerable (no MPs).
I really think that almost any other SNES RPG has got to be better than this one. At least this is the worst one I've played so far and I've played like 300 SNES games already.
Still, it's at least playable. However, it doesn't have an interesting story to tell, the graphics are on par with the NES, the menus are teeth-grindingly awful and the combat can get repetitive and boring pretty fast.
The game does have its' moments, but there are too few and those few are deeply buried under a pile of mediocrity.
If you have to choose between purchasing Paladin's Quest or any other SNES RPG, choose the latter I'd say.