I'm glad you enjoyed the game! It's great to hear people have been loving it so much.
I definitely left the shotgun that way intentionally, the game can get difficult at points, and I felt a little bit of cheese could be necessary for some players haha. I originally had ammo run out and the player would need to pick up more off pirates but in testing I found it was a bit more fun to just shoot as much as you want, especially with how much damage the enemies do, so I removed that bit.
The theme really only fits into the game through its story; I originally had 3 full cutscenes planned to make it a lot more engaging and understandable, even had the voice acting all done lol. I was cut short on time last minute though and sadly wasn't able to implement said cutscenes.
Thank you for playing and thanks a lot for leaving a review with some real feedback and input! I appreciate that a lot.