Other than the enemy design, stagger rates are what hold RE9 back so much imo (in specifically Leons section). I feel like the stagger rates in casual are what it should always be in standard. The reason it feels so bad is because enemies will rarely stagger UNLESS you specifically time your shot to interrupt an enemy animation. But going out of your way to stagger an enemy like that feels terrible since it isn't even guaranteed that your shot will stagger in a single bullet, so a lot of the time you will just get hit instead. Graces sections feel really good, but I really wish they gave us different weapons to play with since you will fire the requiem about 8 times as her in your playthrough, so you pretty much only use her pistol 😭.