I played the game about a month ago, and I honestly have to say it's really good. The removal of the world map was an excellent choice in this game (that removed the most crushing elements of the original - the poor method of story progression), and the action RPG style compliments the original gameplay style very well. The characters, while overplayed a little bit in this version, stay true to the original, which made my day. The soundtrack is superb, incorporating tracks from the original and sequel and rearranging them for the superior DS sound.
While the action RPG element was a nice addition, the designers slacked off on the puzzles. Many abilities are only used for a single area, and the puzzles that are there are far too simple.With character swapping there was potential for an engaging rich experience, but the lack of dungeon puzzles remove the need for this. The difficulty curve is a bit... erratic. Personally, I enjoyed the steep curve in the beginning (since the game gives the option to ease the curve via auto leveling), but then it levels out, which makes the rest of the game easy, by comparison.
Overall, an enjoyable game in it's own right. It's comparably enjoyable to the original that it's based on, and had the potential to even surpass it, in my book, if those flaws were not present. Nonetheless, I'd say it was a worthy purchase.
Oh, thanks for the necro - I wanted to comment on it for a little while now.