I finally chanced upon a game that I had a hand in making, so in lieu of the typical affair, I'll mostly describe the extremely auxiliary paragame that I was fixated on during development. The physical simulation of lights was my sanctuary when playing the game, perhaps to the detriment of my critique for the actual game. The lamp by the knight's monument was particularly enthralling after I had once triggered a massive slingshot by attempting to cross the steep angle of its cable. It appears that these cables and a few others have been turned static, which was likely necessary for performance. For anyone else whose arena after the fountain courtyard gets bugged, I'll post a screenshot of where the enemy was in my session; they tend to teleport out of bounds frequently in this area, so check behind all the windows and your attacks should still reach beyond the wall. All things considered, I found the game far more fun after being away from it for nearly a year.
The game is full of sanctuaries, which I always love in games of this size because it's a marker of selfless caretakers of the art; "petting the dog" in a proverbial sense. It makes me think back on a lot of these games where I might have missed small things that would have changed my mind; really all it takes for me to have fun is a mute and evocative something-or-other. As a sound designer I ought to be particularly critical of myself, and other reviews saw some of what I did on my current playthrough. The timbre of glassy shards and swinging chains are very adjacent to each other, and this muddles my intent to have lamp damage be audibly prominent when my attacks are producing an ambient distraction for that signifier. I will say that I was kind of opposed to cartoon meat thwacks accentuating combat, but it's the kind of thing that no one will read an intentional choice into when there's barely anything else to take its place.
Zelda feels like a somewhat obvious reference to make, although in hindsight I don't believe it was mentioned at all during development. Ocarina's introductory cutscene is able to show the world's cosmology before settling into its cuter, down-to-earth tone. Wind Waker's enemies can be creepy yet still bouncy and comical. The music even shares some melodic and timbral texture with Zelda's Lullaby and the Temple of Time. All this to say that Knight Light 2 will be releasing soon for the Nintendo Switch 2!! Better play the original quick before we shut down the servers <_<