I have beaten Lennus II and enjoyed that a fair bit more. I recommend it. It has a save anywhere feature which makes it ideal for playing in however long you can. Sometimes I only have 10 minutes to game and in such cases, Lennus II’s save anywhere feature was a boon. I had no idea the repro was expensive. As you well know, there are other means to play it. I won’t get into playing philosophies but I’ll just say this: it’s worthy enough to be played… however which way you can.

I found it interesting that you had a choice to physically attack enemies from more than one part of the character’s body and that you could practically do it all with one hand during battle, and I liked the mercenary system as well and how each person you hire has a different technique. Kohei Tanaka’s music succinctly complements Lennus’ atmosphere in my opinion as it manages to breathe life into its 10,000 year old world, also it captures the right tone of each individual scene; one of my favorite video game scores of his (there’s no such thing as a bad Kohei Tanaka score in my book), but it doesn’t hold a candle to his greatest work for Matrix Software’s Alundra.

I also found the contrast between Naskuot and Saskuot interesting, on one hand you have a bright continent where it’s rich with prestigious life accompanied by a very empowering overworld theme but on the other hand you have a poor and withered continent where its residents are initially hostile and prejudicial towards you simply because you’re from Naskuot (the fact that Zaygos has taken over Saskuot doesn’t help matters) with a darker and slightly more aggressive background theme.

I can see how the slow pacing can be a bit of a put off when it comes to bird’s eye segments, but at least it’s consistent in that regard and for me anyway the only time I really wanted it to go faster was during the final segment (the underground does make for an ideal place to level grind and/or money farm, though) which is more than I can say for certain other turn-based RPGs (Neverland’s Lufia & the Fortress of Doom has your characters move swiftly in the safe areas but everywhere else it’s slow which I personally found annoying among other factors, thankfully the bizarrely titled prequel Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals–why put a successive number in a title designated for a prequel?–fixed that so you could go swiftly all the time). I appreciate that all characters in your party receive the equal high amount of experience points as opposed to dividing them by the number of people in your party (like a certain Capcom RPG sequel did), so it’s good.

One joke I found endearing was in Rekuon Town where you entered the chapel and talked to the priest in a deliberately 8-bit interior area, in a playful nod to games like the grandfather of turn-based RPGs Dragon Quest where generally in those kinds of turn-based RPGs if one of your party members loses all health their health is at zero (which isn’t the case here as if a party member lost all their health in battle and then you either win or run away from battle said member’s health is at 1 HP), where he’ll try to revive one of your characters but then once he sees that no one needs reviving he sheepishly attempts to flee from the room but before he reaches the exit door he trips then gets up again to finish his escape–makes me laugh every time. XD

Roe R. Adams III largely did a good job when it came to translating the dialogue in my opinion, certain spelling errors on certain occasions notwithstanding, though I’ll admit it does falter when it comes to the items and equipment you come across as they are awkwardly shortened and abbreviated–the first time I played it I now idea what the items (such as “P fth” and “G milk” or any of the “cd” items) were until I looked at the item and monster chart I got with the game at which point I was like “Oh!” =O … probably would’ve helped if there were an option to tell you what certain items do, but oh well.

Interestingly five people involved in Lennus/Paladin’s Quest had prior involvement with Jorudan’s Xardion of all games, weirdly enough–music composer Kohei Tanaka, producers Hiroshi Okamoto and Shinji Ogawa, American version producer Toshiyuki Futamura, and Roe R. Adams III who did the English translation–I do have more enjoyment from playing Paladin’s Quest than Xardion (or for that matter fellow Jorudan platformer Musya, which incidentally I would play over Xardion). It also precedes Produce’s Elnard/The 7th Saga (the latter came to America before Paladin’s Quest), Quintet and Ancient’s Slapstick/Robotrek, and SquareSoft’s Chrono Trigger in that there’s a moment where you travel back in time (and it’s all in black and white which just adds more to the surreal value).

I haven’t played the sequel, I’d like to play it someday, but both the original Super Famicart and the NTSC SNES repro cart are very expensive (especially the former, I mean WOW); I hear it’s better than Lennus/Paladin’s Quest, but by how much I’m not sure. Of the SNES turn-based RPGs released by Enix, I personally liked this one more than Robotrek (cute lighthearted fun hampered by unequal quality of music and an awful translation) and especially more than The 7th Saga (Elnard does trump all three, though, as it’s fair and balanced and a lot of fun and easy to revisit unlike the American version concocted by Enix of America in hubris and contempt mode).

I wouldn’t play Paladin’s Quest over Capcom’s original Breath of Fire turn-based RPG, Chrono Trigger, any of the canon Final Fantasy RPGs, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Elnard, or Konami’s Mōryō Senki MADARA 2, but I would play it over HAL Laboratory’s Arcana, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest (I like the game, in spite of its brevity and easygoing nature), Robotrek, The 7th Saga, Breath of Fire II, and it wouldn’t be fair for me to judge the Lufia RPGs as I haven’t beaten either one (yet) but I would definitely play it over the first one because of the aforementioned reasons. One reservation I always had with this game is the lack of an in-game time clock, it would’ve been nice to know exactly how long I’d been playing it without looking at different clocks or my watch or whatever so I wouldn’t be left guessing (especially with all the level grinding).

Still, I acknowledge that this game’s got flaws and shortcomings but I enjoy playing it all the same. =)

To each their own