I am sorry to hear that.
Probably the problem is the lack of instructions what I provided :) The controls are not just simple presses. You have to hold down the C or X buttons, and then press one of the arrow keys to aim. The character will do the action on release.
Other possibility is that the game is buggy as hell :D I know of an existing bug that sometimes the phantom just disappears, and none of the abilities work. I couldn't figure out yet what causes this bug. Probably just my spaghetti code :D
And thank you very much for trying to make it work. Either thing is the issue, it was my fault