The game was a critical and commercial success. This is the first Soul game depicting the 1590 A.D. Compared to Soulcalibur, Soulcalibur II had improvements in graphics and the game system and introduced several new and guest characters. The game's plot revolves around the legendary weapon Soul Edge having been shattered into pieces, with different characters seeking to collect all the pieces to gain possession of the complete weapon or to destroy it once and for all. Originally intended to be released on Sega's NAOMI board, the game was released on the Namco System 246 arcade board before being ported to the PlayStation 2, GameCube and Xbox in 2003. It is the sequel to Soulcalibur, which was released in July 1998. Soulcalibur II ( ソウルキャリバーII, Sōrukyaribā Tsū) is a 2002 fighting game developed by Project Soul and published by Namco and the third installment in the Soulcalibur series of weapon-based fighting games.