Can you consistently snipe with the pistol?

[grape cough syrup]

I'm playing the game for the first time, and playing on survival. I have a save where one of the basic enemies is very close by, and I've been playing with the games mechanics to become more familiar with them. If I take aim at it from a distance, I can take it down with one shot and finish it off with a kick; but it doesn't feel very consistent. Does aiming for the head with your mouse (yes I am not using dual shock for this because of the free aim) actually do anything? I feel like it does, but it doesn't feel very consistent.

[Pico]

A lot of mechanics are not fully known by the community, but the consensus appears to be that holding your aim longer will increase the damage you deal.
So it's not a headshot mechanic, but you do get a significant boost to damage if you take the extra moment to focus. On top of that, there's also claims that a critical hit system exists, but I don't know how that's assumed to work.

[[E.G.P]Noodles]

There seems to be a focus aim system kind of like Resident Evil 2 Remake, where when the aiming square is at its smallest you can deal some intense damage.

With the shotgun focused on two enemies who are unaware on Survival Difficulty, I can down both with one shot, even the ones that should have the most HP (by that I man enemies that take 2 stun prods to down).

I don't know exactly how damage and criticals work, but waiting for the aiming square to shrink on shots on unaware targets seems to work semi-consistently for downing an enemy in one shot.

[grape cough syrup]

Good morning and thanks for the replies. A focus mechanic does indeed seem to be the case, rather than a headshot mechanic. The free look with the cursor gave me the impression that it might be a headshot mechanic, but the 2D nature of the game makes the focus system much more plausible.

If there is a crit system, I can't see it being radically different than what we see in RE games, where it's just 1/n chance of landing a crit, and maybe n is a function of time spent focused.