Well, I've played Paladin, and I must say I have mixed feelings about the game. After playing for 3 hours and 36 minutes, here are my thoughts on it(scores are from 1-5, with 5 being best).
For my reviews here, I'll give a brief description of the points which are scored:
-Artistry(how good the areas look)
-Storytime(how good the storyline is and if it's bearable)
-The meat(what you'll spend most of the game doing)
-Extras(what's not in most games)
-Nitpicks(what I didn't like and what could use improvement;the higher the score, the less nitpicks I have about the game)
Artistry(4)Incredible. Even though not every place was great looking, what you spent a lot of time in(the towns mainly) looked smashing. Every room you went to in towns looked spectacular and had eye popping details. Obviously in this respect, a lot of time has been put into the design of these areas. Put some NPCs into the mix, and you have a world that lives, breathes and well...you get the idea.
Storytime(3)I thought the story was alright. You basically play as Nick, a guy who's a weakling and wants to find out what he should do about current events. I can't really go into detail without spoiling things(I made a humorous synopsis about the story, but then I saw Doan's rule about no spoilers, DOH). But let's just say you'll be mad at the man upstairs for not allowing you to see the "adult play".
The meat(3)You'll be doing some exploring and battling. Exploring was more or less kind of straining. The fighting is pretty basic, but at the same time has potential for complexity. If you've played RPG Maker 2's DBS before, you know what to expect here. All the enemies have some unique attacks, and they look nice. Interacting with objects is quick and some people have interesting conversations to have.
Extras(3)Many extra features here. First there's the "Extreme" system(TO THE EXTREEEEEME!) of attacks, which members get to use when they're desperate. These are cool looking(I liked Virtue Blitz) and do good damage. And then there's weapon skills everyone can use and magic.
You have Row change, which puts a little bit more strategy into battles and classes which you can use to gain extra abilities. The help system was kind of nice too, since I forgot what to do a lot. Pretty descriptive and to the point.
Nitpicks(4)Be prepared to replace your X button, as for some reason, it's required to go through many displays of dialogue(you'll know what I mean once you play it). I also didn't like how in towns, the path to other sides of the town(like north Topal to south Topal) seem distant and are a bit difficult to navigate at first. And then there's the message displays. Some of them don't stay on screen, leaving you to wonder what the heck was showing. No valuable info was affected, but it was kind of annoying.
Worth playing? Yeah, to an extent. It's not a must-play game for RPG Maker 2, but you'll get some enjoyment out of it.
(now I know why Will ran out of memory, geez!)
