Has anyone played this and the original? If so, thoughts?

Playing through it right now (although most of my 3DS time is being absorbed by Theatrhythm Dragon Quest, which is, again, fantastic), and it is still one of the most brilliant games ever made, and it's insane that they managed to squeeze such a gigantically huge game onto a tiny 3DS cart with very little loss of, well, anything.

Obviously the resolution takes a bit of a hit (although it was never too high to begin with) and there's jaggies all over the place, but you're getting an insanely huge RPG that you can take with you anywhere for a very affordable price and it runs at a solid framerate as well.
Strictly speaking, the Wii version is better, because it has the upper hand graphically, and if you buy the Western version you're getting dual audio as well, but considering the herculean task of porting this game to a handheld like the 3DS, I'd say they did an amazing job.

If you do not have a Wii or you want to play your RPGs on a portable console, this is a must- buy.

Edit: my avatar should make it clear that I am biased.