Resident Evil 4 {
2} 10/10
No regrets on waiting to play this until I was able to do so in VR, just like I did with RE7 and RE8. I feel like that was the right choice. Sorry if this is coming off as mumbo jumbo, I've just been writing down various thoughts as I've been playing through it (currently at Chapter 12).
So to start off with a somewhat negative, the graphics are good, there are some damn good lighting effects, but to be honest I did expect slightly better visuals from my first AAA PSVR2 game. The fire effects and explosions just don't look that great.
The audio is great though. The explosions sound good (much better than they look), voice acting is fine by me, I've heard fans of the series crap on Ada's new voice actor but I didn't have a problem with her at all. The sound effects in general are good, multiple times I've heard an enemy nearby and knew right where the sound was coming from which allowed me to sneak up on them (more on that later).
Controls for the most part are quite good. Actually in the beginning I outright didn't like them, but really I just needed to get used to them.
It took me a little while to adjust to the fact that I need to hold the shotgun with two hands, and give it that little "pump" after firing each shot, for example. Or that I have to manually reach down into the pouch thingy with my left hand to grab ammo to reload the gun in my right hand. Once I got used to it all, I really liked the controls. I feel like this is now the definitive way to play RE4, it finally took the crown from the Wii version. The game overall makes good use of the haptic feedback too.
Having said that though, there was one puzzle in particular where you have to rotate these hexagonal things. I have nothing good to say about that part, because the controls were uncooperative and I had almost rage-quit for the night. There were a couple of other parts too where when you turn your hand to rotate an object, Leon's in-game hand doesn't exactly turn the way it should be. Those parts don't happen often though.
The controls on the speedboat could use some work too. You hold R2 to accelerate and that's pretty much it. Just putting light pressure on the button won't do anything, so you're either parked or going full speed, not much room for in-between.
I do think it is kinda wack that your save file is tied between VR or flat, meaning you can't play in VR until the VR2 Sense controllers' batteries die and then continue in flat mode. That isn't much of a problem for me though since I don't intend on ever playing it flat anyway, but still it kinda sucks and I don't recall it being an issue in Resident Evil 7 on the last-gen PSVR.
One cool thing I want to point out is that I've been using my knife
a lot, and in addition I've been using it to stealth kill zombies from behind. First off, I almost never use the knife in Resident Evil games. You get so many cool guns to defend yourself with, who has time for a knife? But stealth kills make it worth upgrading your knife in this one. I would never play stealthily in the flat games because they've never really encouraged you to play that way in RE before, but in VR it's really fun to sneak up on a zombie and stab them in the neck. And yes, I know they're technically not called zombies in this game, but I'll never not call them that. And the mini-boss knife fight later in the game, VR just makes that so much more fun (same for the minecart section, which I was looking forward to but it ended up being shorter than I remember.)
Another thing to say is that...the game just isn't very scary, even in VR. Now you may say "no duh" to that, because this was where the series sorta shifted away from its survival/horror roots and became more action, but it feels abundantly clear now. It's like a night and day difference between playing Resident Evil 7 in VR and Resident Evil 4 in VR. In Resident Evil 7 there were lots of scares, and the whole atmosphere was creepy. In Resident Evil 4, well I'm at Chapter 12 so far and the first moment of the game that scared me was a short scripted sequence in Chapter 5 or 6 (I think) where I was walking on a wooden platform and fell through it with no warning. There have been a couple moments later on too where I was surrounded by enemies and one snuck up on me from behind and I wasn't expecting that. I don't mean to imply there are no scares at all, but it's not like RE7. But later on you realize the game gets way more intense than RE7 did.
The game also isn't very "VR AF", (the slang term the VR kiddos use these days for VR games that really immerse you in the experience). You can't just pick up random items on tables scattered throughout the game, doors and drawers are opened by pressing the X button instead of you actually using your hands to open them, and cutscenes are all 2D. Since it's a hybrid flat/VR game, I'll give it a pass on not being able to pick up random objects, but hybrid or not I don't like 2D cutscenes in my VR games, that just comes off as lazy IMO.
One more little nitpick that I don't really even need to mention because it affects so many other VR games too, is that when walking it really feels more like your character is just gliding across the floor. I feel like not many VR games get that part right, but it's not a deal breaker or anything.
Despite some of my minor complaints, I'm really enjoying the game. It's not perfect (no game is, just because it gets scored a 10 doesn't mean it's without flaws), but they've managed to make an already great game even better. I do not want this game to end.