Well it looks like that they change character from Noctis to guy with gun midway through one of the fights, so that suggests you can change characters mid battle. If you look in the top-right corner, there is also a bar that either counts down or counts up.

And I'm not amped that it isn't multi-platform because I think the PS3 is such a superior platform (if it is, it is going to be marginal). I'm amped that Nomura decided it was going to be a PS3 exclusive and the executives who were pushing for multi-platform had to stand down. With XIII, I think that was the problem - the executives had too much of a hand in it and that diluted whatever vision the developers wanted to take.

EDIT: They said a while back it's unlikely to make 2011. So 2012 release in Japan, meaning either a late 2012/early 2013 release for the rest of the world.