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First off, I have never played FFXII. Fortunately, that doesn't seem to matter as the story kicks off after the events in the original game, and the characters (including Vaan) are all carefully introduced for new players.
The game is an original concept in the series. It cleverly merges a traditional RPG with real-time strategy (instead of the turn-based FF Tactics). Each member of your party is able to summon units (Espers) to fight along side them. It plays very much much Warcraft 3's heroes system, with each character fighting as well as controlling one group of units. The units themselves follow the standard RTS convention of three different types that all counter each other: Ranged > Flying > Melee; and Fire > Lightning > Earth > Water. In order to win each level, you must capture summoning points, and assemble your little army, before defeating the enemy forces. As you progress you can level-up to obtain new weapons, units (Espers), magic and abilities.
I'm about 20% of the way through the story (about 3 hours), which is excellent, witty and compelling. I've enjoyed the challenges presented so far, and the level design has been very interesting. What really amazes me is the quality of the dual-screen full motion video used in the cut scenes. The quality of the images and animation on the little DS screens is incredible. The levels are also highly detailed with some fantastic textures.
The only couple of niggles I have found so far is that it can get a bit chaotic on screen (like all RTSs do when it becomes a unit brawl) and the stealth missions are horrible.
I'll probably publish a full review when I get past 50%.
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