Jer,
For that particular animation the essential version would be enough. But we bough the pro version because we wanted to deform stufff : this feature is what they call meshes deformation. You can do that (deform 'pictures' with bones). I find Spine a bit pricey. But its a nice software, it works.
Spine is different than many other animation tools because it can export dynamic animations and characters (or whatever you want to anim) to several game engines, which means no need to pre render animations, the game engine will display, start or stop animations when needed. You can find different applications which can do the same kind of dynamic animations : dragon bones, creature...
You can also do those kind of animations and prerender it with for example anime studio or even with a 3D app like Blender. Though the rigging would be often a bit more difficult in a 3D app.
There is also a very handy addon for blender that will bring you freely all (or most) to the animations/export features of spine. (see the video)
If you're a hobbyist, learn blender, you will be able to animate almost anything, its powerful and free. But you have to learn
Voila
Ah and i used pngs part to export from AD.
Il will really soon another timelapse video to show the whole process (affinity + Spine).
