Compare it to SC2, and let me know. I may get this, or may not. It's pretty hard to improve on SC2, so I don't know if it would be worth it.
The charatcers a much more balanced. Maxi and Yun-seoug (previously Yunsung) have much better moves and are overall farther up playwise than they were in II. There are no characters that stand out to me right now as incredibly better than anyone else. Sure Xianghua, Yoshimitsu, Sigfreid, and all the other top tier characters are still great. But they do not have that sense of complete overpowering that they did in II.
The new characters are pretty good. Tira is a really fun character to play with, Zasalamel is awesome because he has a scythe (good for you Magus fanboys out there), Setsuka is okay but she reminds me too much of Taki's fighting style. That isn't a bad thing, but I want a new character, not a reformatted old character.
The Chronicles of the sword mode is fun, while the critics have been ragging on it I still like it. It is a simple supplimental RTS style game, with regular fights that determine the battles. It make it fun to actually battle, instead of watching the life meter drop slowly you can go in there and fight the enemy straight up. This is also where your character creation stuff is, and so far it is nice but I would have liked more start up things to have. The selection is minimal at first, but ti has been picking up as of late. I am trying to make a Crono clone, and I have gotten a good amount of his look down already.
The fighting is still solid, nothing really has changed. There are no new game play additions, the moves are all similar. Of course the characters have reworked moves, and also new moves too.
That is all I have played so far, and I think it is multitudes better than II.
Will the possible 360 and revo versions have online play?
It is PS2 exclusive.