I played the game a couple of days ago. It's very good gameplay-wise. I just wish that all fighting games now have the option of unlocking everything from the start, because it's a nuisance spending time unlocking characters and custom items if you only have the game for two days. Gameplay-wise its fast and I like the critical edges. I just think it's stupid that escaping from throws causes damage to the person who escapes it. So when a person gets grabbed they will take damage regardless which makes no sense to punish the player for catching an opponent's grab attempt.

and Ring-Outs no longer end the round, as each arena now has multiple stages, and when you knock an opponent off a platform, both fighters fall down to the next platform to continue the battle from there.
That is not true. Ring-Outs are still end, the stage transition thing just occurs when one player has only one round to win. It has no involvement during the battle, it just changes the arena during the last round or two.