I remember from talks had during some speed runs I watched that there were a few viable builds. You could do fire/earth for melee or water/wind with a little bit of earth which is what I did in my playthrough. I definitely cheesed the movement stat though.
I had it, but I had no idea what I was doing, so I didn't make it very far.
I don't remember if this came out before or after we got internet at home (and I never had the Nintendo Power magazine), so there wasn't much to do about that.