SquareEnix's long awaited return to Nintendo is just days away, with the first title being an entry into the company’s ubiquitous Final Fantasy series. Well, sort of. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is a strategy game through and through, with some RPG elements, but aside from some familiar characters and enemies, it bears little resemblance to a Final Fantasy game. Don't you dare call Tactics a "remake" either, as both Nintendo and SquareEnix are quick to affirm that while it has the Tactics name, the game's story and characters are all brand-new.

That story revolves around Marche, a new kid in town, trying to find his place in the social order of St. Ivalice. He makes quick friends with two other kids at school: Ritz, a spunky girl with pink hair (dyed from white), and Mewt, a quiet kid that tends to get picked on by others. After a snowball fight at school that leaves Mewt a little bruised, they decide to meet up at Marche's house to check out a strange book that Mewt has come across. The book seems to be written in a strange language, and the kids can't make heads or tails of it. They separate for the night, only to wake up with the entire town transformed into something out of their favorite game … Final Fantasy, of course!

Along the way, Marche will meet new friends, form a clan and recruit new members, acquire new weapons, armor, and abilities, and even change "jobs" through a deep and convoluted job system. Marche and his clan grow through the completion of various missions, and borrowing an idea from the Mana series of games, the player can acquire new land "icons" and place them anywhere on the map, allowing for Treasure Hunts that can reveal rare items.

The story is lighthearted and fun, but the gameplay is hardly "light". With over twenty possible members of your clan, you will spend a great deal of time experimenting The game gives you an all too brief tutorial as you get started, then dumps you into the game proper to fend for yourself. Expect to have a learning curve of 5-6 hours as you attempt to figure out just what's going on and how best to handle battles. This is also one of the few games where I would HIGHLY suggest getting a strategy guide, simply because there is so much going on in the game that without it, you're hardly going to scratch the surface. Even so, the official strategy guide doesn't cover everything, such as the optimal layouts for some treasure hunt items, so take the guide with a grain of salt.

It's far too early to tell how I feel about the game. I wasn't having the least bit of fun early on, but as I progress, the game seems to be growing on me. If the difficulty and obscurity of the game's mechanics don’t turn people off, they're going to find a fun story and a ridiculous amount of gameplay. Those that aren't fans of the strategy genre might want to give it a look, but be prepared for the vicious learning curve.