One of the reasons you need to own a Dreamcast!
The gameplay here is great. You pick a fighter and can fight other fighters either them being computer controlled or player controlled. There is also a world tour type fighting option where you go around the world fighting different characters and doing a lot of challenges with some story element. This is an arcade game at heart, which makes this game frantic and fun no matter what option you are playing under. The story element is weak in this game, but it's a fighting game for crying out loud! I wasn't expecting a story, but what I got was good enough for this game. Fighting in 3d arenas for the first time was tight, and this game really changed how fighting games are played and how they look now. Awesome...
The graphics here were breathtaking for their time. Sure, there are much better graphics now, but when the Dreamcast came out and you played Soul Caliber, you were just blown away. Everything is very detailed and the characters look very fluid. All of the characters look really good with each having their own little twist and vibe. The physics engine is also pretty impressive with the body movements. This game looked really realistic back in the day, and still holds up well today against some of the other systems. This is definately the best looking game for the Dreamcast. The sound here was good as well. The character voice overs were good, and the music was awesome at some parts. Definately an epic soundtrack for the "new generation" of games with the Dreamcast.
The replay value for this game is very high. I still play it to this day! It's fun just fighting everyone you can and trying to be the best fighter there is. The multiplayer never dies in this game, and it's just the type of game that you'll be playing in 10 or so years remembering how great the older systems really were.
Overall, this is a great fighting game and one of the main reasons I had to obtain a Dreamcast. A decent system all around, but this game made it worth it. If you're looking for the game that started the original "next gen" look no further than Soul Caliber for the Dreamcast.