Been playing lots of Ultimax challenges for a couple of different characters. Compared to the stuff I did with Arena, the game is both easier and harder to control. I'd almost go on to say that quarter-circles come out a little too easily, but that may be due to sloppy execution more than anything else.
Also, as I tentatively go through Ulti's "story", I couldn't help but notice a significant technical improvement, mainly surrounding the backlog feature:
-In Arena, scrolling through the backlog ranged anywhere from normal speed to actually lagging the game. For some reason, depending on the CG used and the number of characters inhabiting the screen at once (i.e. 0, 1, or 2 characters), the backlog's speed and control had to adjust accordingly. With all elements in place scrolling with the backlog was really slow and laggy, which I always found odd.
-In Ultimax the backlog scrolls fucking fast. It doesn't care about how many elements are going on at the time, either. It's a mechanical upgrade, and one I was impressed to see, since you'd expect such a detail to just go under the radar.
Also music actually loops properly in Ultimax! Weird how I didn't notice all this stuff until right now.