I haven't cared about a fighting game this much in a long time.
Flash forward to present day, my girlfriend and I are at the local game store browsing and I ask if she'd be willing to play SoulCalibur II with me. Since she is a gamer as well, she agrees. I buy the game, take it home, and start playing. I am amazed. This game is a fighting game players dream come true.
The graphics are, for a game from several years ago, very nice, especially if you've got a progressive-scan enabled wide-screen television. The motion captured moves are all fluidly and gracefully executed, and as if that weren't enough, they even have kata (forms, for the non-martial arts practitioners out there) for each individual character, which are pretty entertaining to watch.
The game-play is where this really shines though. It's so easy to pick up and play for the casual player, and deep and involved for the more hardcore set. Since it is a 3D fighter, players can move all around the battlefield, so there are three basic types of attacks. This is something I'm very thankful for. No more high punch, low punch, high kick, low kick. In SoulCalibur II, there are only horizontal, vertical, and kick attacks. This makes it easy to pull off a lot of the moves, without hitting the wrong button, or having altogether useless attacks (be honest, who ever just used the low punch to actually punch your opponent in MKII?).
It's good to see how much the fighting game has evolved by all the different modes present in this game. Survival, Time Attack, Practice modes (I wish that was around back in the day). There is also a campaign mode called Weapon Master, in which one can collect various weapons, unlock characters, modes, and stages for the other modes in the game. The inclusion of the extra characters, Link, and Necrid, also add lots of variety to the game, as well as giving players the chance to play as one of video-gaming's most beloved characters.
Bottom line, if you love fighting games, you'll love this game. If you've been out of the fighting games circuit for a while, you'll probably love this game as well. It's even better with a friend, and since it's so accessible, almost anyone can enjoy it. SoulCalibur II is definitely worth your time.