Old-school? Definitely. Fun? Obviously!!
Several years later, the guys from Namco did the right thing and made it available for XBox Arcade. It was like a dream coming true. In spite of having played all the games from the series, this one game still didn't lose its charm. It was nice to see a couple of my favorite characters as they were in the first time they showed in the series and complete their evolution timeline.
The controls responses are much like Soul Edge/Blade: fast and... well, precise wouldn't be the right word. Fluid, I should say. All the characters from the original roster are present, except for Li Long, who was replaced by Maxi, and also the extra characters (Soul Edge, who was defeated, and Seoung Han Myong, Mina's master). On the other hand, the game gained brand new characters: Kilik, Xianghua, Ivy, Lizardman, Astaroth, Nightmare, Yoshimitsu from the Tekken series, Edge Master and Lizardman. Edge Master and Lizardman won't make much difference in your life, since their moveset is like Mokujin's in the Tekken series: they're copycats from other characters.
One thing that disappointed me in this game: the character endings. Soul Calibur's predecessor had full sequences for each characters (except for the secret ones). This one has... pictures. Ok, Soul Calibur 2 also had pictures and a couple of text, but I expected the game to follow the same line of ending as Soul Edge. I didn't feel that the game's endings were rewarding enough.
Soundtracks were not as addictive as its predecessor, but the songs overall were pretty good.
Overall, a good game. Definitely worth the price.