Actually, my friends and I played some Soul Calibur 2 yesterday (we're Wii owners, so no SC4 for us) and I found that I consistently lost every battle after the first one. I mistimed all my guard impacts and could not get any decent damage in before my opponent retaliated. Of course, neither of us had played the game in years, but my friend is much more familiar with fighting games in general than I am, so I know that skill definitely plays a role.
Except, you know, when you forget what every button does and just button mash. Sadly, this strategy worked better for me than calculating every attack, but it was not satisfying and was not as much fun. Of course, losing every round was not much fun either.
Personally I find the Super Smash Bros. series to be more fun and less reliant on button mashing than other fighting games, and we played more Brawl yesterday than SC2, but SC2 was still fun to play in short bursts. Most fighting games were initially designed to be arcade games, and so they are not meant to be played for long periods of time.
