Its similar, if not identical to the gameboyversions. so what?
if you ever played fire emblem before, you kjnow exactly how this game works: a mix of turn-based stratagy and RPG. this works just too well to be true. your soldiers grow in strenght as time lenghts. the biggest problem for you as a tactician is, that your opponents seem to do so as well. what this game makes truly hard, is that you can't sacrafice any of your players. if they die, they're gone. never to return. that wouldn't be that bad for the usual advance wars or RTS player, but its disastrous for the emblem player. you can't just recruit anyone, the recruits come to you, and fight for their own reasons. this is unique to fire emblem, and works for over years now!
the graphics could be slightly better, though. you can see axes hit the target, altough he would have missed in the real world over a meter. also, some classes (read: genarals) look plain ugly, and the myrmidons and swordmaster aren't half as cool as the gameboy fire emblems.
sound is outstanding. it fits the situation, never gets annoying, and I just like hearing it.
so now the usual shopping advice: go get it! this is great for starters and hardcores alike!