I would almost be tempted to give this game a good review, if the idiotic game designed hadn't messed up the difficulty.
This unfortunately falls into the former. Not so much in the forgetable single player story mode which sadly isn't really acceptable because of proper design but rather because you can abuse ring outs. It is in this tactical battle mode. Yeah, I know they have to occasionally tilt things in favor of the AI, but when an opponent can 1 hit KO you, and even throwing 4 guys at them isn't enough, this is just stupid. When you have a ice battle field, that only you are effected by, and that mysteriously accelerates you to 10X your speed, not to mention making any hit you take virtually unrecoverable, this is bad design. Oh, how about levels where they reduce your damage output to slivers while your opponent can do 30-40% per hit? How about an opponent who can mysteriously block anything and everything you throw at him? The way they implemented the handicaps is idiotic and beyond frustrating. The AI being done poorly so that it acts like it has ESP half the time only adds to the frustration. When you get to these levels of stupidity, this is no longer a measure of skill, it's a measure of luck and when a game does this to artifically increase it's difficult, I just don't have the patience for it. This has effectively ruined what was initially impressing me as an interesting idea.
However, if you're a masocist, or a Soul Calibur fanatic, I'm sure you'll look past this. But, for those you aren't, spare yourself the frustration. It's a renter at best in my mind, and take my advice, don't use your good controller.