Better than Tekken? Hell no. Just as great? Hell yeah.
The only things that differ between Soul Calibur and Tekken is the weapons master mode and the individual arcade modes. Tekken doesn't have weapons master mode (what a surprise). And Soul Calibur's arcade mode doesn't exactly have ending movies (pictures and texts aren't movies).
With some gameplay differences from Tekken, Soul Calibur plays just as fast, has the same amount of depth, got the same great cast of characters, and ironiclly has Yoshimishu (yes Soul Calibur fan, he was in our game first).
If I have to deside which Namco game is better, I'd be out of luck. My opinion, neither one is, and that's a good thing. If I want a sword fight, I'd pop in Soul Calibur. If I want a bare-knuckle brawl, I'd wit' Tekken. So I'd say if you a fan of the first Soul Calibur game, check it out. If your a Tekken fan and haven't even heard of it, pick this up now. It's Tekken, but with weapons.
Note: this is my first review without cussing!