Haven't had a person nor a gamepad, but by what I've seen, the idea is there. If I interpret it right, this is "a smash clone, but there's no damage and you collect your moveset". This is a fun idea, worthy of a stand alone game.
For me, a keyboard user, the movement was a little too slippery, it's easy to stock yourself, but I guess it's due to the lack of time to tweak the numbers, as I guess your movement uses the GM's Box2D physics system, which isn't the nicest to configure. The ammount of movesets is ridiculous, the hold to alter feature really impressed me. What would be a worthy addition is a "reject an element" button, so I can go back to a single element moveset. Also for me, this game by giving up the preset movesets and giving this little options has close to none combo potential, erasing one of the layers of appeal of those games.
Still, excellent job!
Viewing post in Spirit Showdown jam comments
Hey, Thanks for the comment, I'd recommend checking out the post-jam version, as we changed some things to make it feel less floaty and more precise, though it's still very much a WIP. We would like to add a lot more moves to give more combo potential, i.e. different attacks when pressing up and down and using an attack and each combo with it's own set of animations, but it wasn't really feasible to do that during the game jam period . Also, we're thinking about making picking up an upgrade require a button press so you have more of a decision in getting the movesets you want.