Hey, quick follow up, the controller issue was that it was set to D-Input instead of X-Input, it's a little switch on the back for my controller, hopefully that helps anyone else having controller issues.
Just beat the first boss, damn, tough as nails. Like I said before, you've got that feeling of, "Oh, just one more try..." that's so hard to capture, but it was frustrating on the way there.
I didn't mind the octopus shadows getting mixed up with the boulders, but it did seem like there were a few times that I took damage/died when it didn't appear that any rock had hit me (standing in a patch of water with no shadow), though sometimes it would look like the rock mesh did overlap the character mesh in screen space, though it shouldn't have overlapped in game space (hopefully that makes sense)
I found myself reaching for a run button while playing with a keyboard, and thought the idea of a projectile weapon might be interesting
I also experienced the odd jitter in the graphics, mostly during the boss fight, and it seemed like the transition between octopus mode and rock mode had a bit of a frame dip, possibly just spawning all the rocks at once?
Great game, I had fun, looking forward to seeing more!