Thanks for the comment and you are 100% on the money! I agree with it all.
I had to really rush the tutorial/easing the player into the game. That is why There was that really long letter from grandpappy in the beginning. The only indicator of the hold "Z" I had was in the first level with it but it wasn't as visible as I would have liked.
The feeling "like the game used a different ability" issue was a result of a sorta last minute change. It's just some poor menu design sadly. Not a glitch, but by using "Z" as both change ability and activate ability the player can easily press it before closing the menu when they were actually trying to press it after to activate the selected ability. I should have just mapped the menu out differently. Its one of my bigger regrets.
Agree on the coin front too. Having it default to your last ability would have made it a much smoother experience. Wish I had thought of that before :P
Thanks again for the suggestions! I appreciate these quite a lot because I want to tweak this into something really fun. This helps with that a tremendously! Looking forward to the video! Shoot me a link if you can! Would love to watch!