OK, desperately trying to remember the name of this

You controlled a number of characters like knights, magicians, etc

The sprites were all massive - they took up half the screen

It was like a basic RPG

It might have been called knight something or night something - I cant remember and its doing my nut in!

3D Panormaic view or top down?

COuld be Nightlore or Nightshade but if top down view also sounds a bit like Gauntlet...

Its side on - not isometric or top down

the characters were half the height of the screen, and you issued orders to them individually - you had a team of maybe 6

dark sceptre - thats the one