Nope.
Soulcalibur is popular because
A) For n00bs, button-mashing produces cool looking stuff, unlike say Street Fighter II where you'll just hop around doing repetitive little attacks. I mean, just look at any Soulcalibur grab.
B) For non-n00bs, it's a really fun fighting system. It's not brutally complex like Tekken, but still a lot more elegant than, say, Smash Bros. or Mortal Kombat.
C) To some extent, graphics. Soulcalibur looked extremely good when it came out.