The best VR experience is Beat Saber. To learn more about the PSVR game, read our initial thoughts about it here. To see how the port fares, read on. The king of the VR rhythm scene and a constant presence on top-seller lists, Beat Saber finally makes its way to PSVR2.
It’s surprising just how small the jump forward feels compared to many of Beat Saber’s peers. It has crisper textures, better particles, and better lighting, but that’s the biggest improvement. You’ll have access to a much larger track list thanks to years of support. You’ll be able to play notes from all directions in 360° mode. In spite of much of the DLC changing things up, there is still a sense of homogeneity to the music.
Beat Saber was designed impeccably for PSVR, avoiding many of the tracking and hit detection difficulties that plagued many other titles trying to take advantage of the device. The occasional issues weren’t severe, but they weren’t frequent enough to pose a real problem. Not so this time around. Frame dips on songs are common, though mercifully not severe. Hit detection on slicing notes also fails randomly. However, the rumble feature on the PSVR2 Sense Controllers is the most annoying.
Your controller won’t rumble when you slice notes. On the surface, this sounds like a trivial problem, but when you’re conditioned to expect each and every note to provide some degree of feedback upon contact, it’s incredibly confusing. It caused us to miss out on multiple combos in the first few days. Despite Beat Games’ efforts, these issues remain for now.
Although there are setbacks, you still get a brutally exhausting gameplay loop with masterfully charted songs.
Pros:
-
Better environments.
-
In 360°.
-
Amazing gameplay loop.
-
It’s fun, especially the DLC.
-
Charting notes like no other.
Cons:
-
Detecting hits.
-
Low frame rate.
-
The control rumble is wonky.
-
Tracklist is homogeneous.
This game gets a 7 out of 10.
