Nintendo reiterates in stronger terms that it now prefers partnerships to purchases

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, we didn't have "NES Wars" or anything, just Advance Wars, so some people won't make the connection without the same name, sadly enough... I definitely see why they did it. But like "Jedi Knight II", I completely disagree. :)

FFTA you can freely choose? Not really. The main campaign is completely linear. It just lets you choose a lot of side-missions along the way (mostly send-out-a-guy types). It's not that different when you think about it... they just added optional missions, that's all.

As for this game, I think they made the right choice. As OB1 said, for pure strategy there's Fire Emblem. We don't want two games that are almost the same. So, why not action-strategy? And that is what this is. Action-strategy. Unit tactics are here, strategic thinking, etc... it's not just "one man against an army"... it's just got faster action. First-person RTS/combat. I'm sure it's not as complex a Uprising or Battlezone (mid-90s PC version), but I suspect that those were some games they were thinking of, given that you have a bunch of units to control... how much they go down that road will depend on how much resource gathering/management (see: money), unit construction, etc. is involved (ie, the more strategy-game elements they add the more like the concept of those games it'll get)... sure, I didn't really like that Battlezone, but that was a very different game and I liked Muzzle Velocity, which has a somewhat similar idea, so I'm sure that this could end up a very fun game.

I'm also sure that no one else here has actually played Muzzle Velocity, Battlezone, Uprising (I haven't played that one either, actually...:)), or Urban Whatever (yeah, didn't play it.), so my point will not mean as much.