After being expelled from numerous schools, troubled teenager James 'Jimmy' Hopkins is sent to Bullworth Academy, believed to be the worst academic institution in America. Jimmy forms an unlikely partnership with fellow delinquent Gary Smith and must tip the balance of power in a school divided between five student factions: the bullies, jocks, preppies, greasers and nerds.
Rockstar may have become an upsetting behemoth over the past 10 years or so, but it's funny to think that there was a time when they could put out a game like this and be accused of creating a "racial violence simulator" without including anything as overtly edgy as Trevor Phillips or interactive torture. Was it not just way more satisfying to troll people with stuff that explicitly *isn't* any more adult or offensive than causing a few skinned knees and wedgied crotches?
It might seem derisive to describe Bully as GTA San Andreas but in a school, and there are reasons why Bully *is* so much more than that. But the prospect of Rockstar taking the best GTA game, trimming some of the excess bloat off and transposing it into another setting setting is one that I wish the studio had pursued more. I guess technically it's what they did with Red Dead, but... nah, that game is exactly how to do that wrong.
One of the best things about Bully is that it's small-scale. Firstly, it's short in terms of playtime - if you're not speed running it and not shooting for 100% completion, there's a good ten hours of content on a first playthrough, which was and still should be perfectly respectable. Secondly, it's a less sprawling, tighter sandbox, with plenty to do but with a pretty strong focus on doing the campaign.
But what I think really benefits it is the bedtime mechanic. It's a simple thing really, but the fact that each in-game day ends with you going to bed - either intentionally or because you pass out around 2am - there's a real feeling of coziness to it all. It's not a life simulator, it's a fun little game about school hijinks, and this mechanic really limits your ability to wander around boring yourself, which would in turn create the temptation for the devs to cram the game with stuff to do during that wandering. Bully hems you in in the best way, by making sure you never forget that it's all about school.
The setting of Bulworth Academy, a pretty faithful recreation of a private boarding school, works to counter one of the things I never liked much about crime-focused sandbox games. The pettiness and pride of factions might be very true to the world of criminal gangs, but it was always kind of alienating to me, as an achingly middle-class bean who just wants everyone to get along and smooch already. Because Bully's factions are made up of cliques of teenage schoolkids, that pettiness is far more relatable, and can actually be presented as being as absurd as it really is. And everyone do be smooching.
Oh yeah, and you can heal yourself by smooching boys, or girls if you're into that; and it's honestly weird to me that *that* wasn't what got the right-wing upset about this game.
Storywise, the game is a little predictable, with the protagonist doing questlines for each major faction. And if I have a criticism, it's how linear that progression is. Faction affinity is presented as a percentage in the menu, but as far as I can tell, it's just a case of one faction's affinity going up, then the next one, then the next one - and then they all go down, which was kinda cool. I get why it's like that; the game itself is pretty linear, which each chapter corresponding to a faction and a season, meaning that the whole environment will change at set points. Optional missions can presumably be missed, but I don't think I ever missed any so I can only guess. Still, it feels like maybe there was an idea to have the player able to annoy or ingratiate themselves to factions in smaller ways outside the main story. Maybe this was sacrificed in the name of a tighter story campaign, and if that's the case, we probably ended up with a stronger game as a result.
Bully stands alongside Saints Row 2, in my opinion, as a game for people who liked what GTA was but weren't really onboard for what it became. It's a game that understands that, while half of the audience for San Andreas was there for the gritty realism and role-play, the other half were there for the profound silliness of it all. And I guess they reached a point where they couldn't really fit both into one game. I do recommend Bully to anyone who hasn't tried it, although god knows how you'd play it these days. It might not blow anyone's mind, but it's the last purely enjoyable Rockstar game that exists purely to be enjoyed.
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But it stands above Max Payne and LA Noire―yuck. This is the original Hogwarts Legacy.
Rockstar Games ranked (the ones I've played):
GTA 4 (classic) RDR2 (classic) Bully (great) GTA San Andreas (great) GTA 5 (good) GTA Vice City (good) Max Payne 1 (good) Max Payne 2 (good - average) Max Payne 3 (mediocre) GTA 3 (awful - outdated) LA Noire (awful)
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i had so much fun with this game!! i haven’t been super into a game ever since i was rlly young so being able to really obsess over this one made my gaming experience 10x more enjoyable
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Bully is a great game. The story is fun, the soundtrack is perfectly fitting, the characters are entertaining and unique, the factions are enjoyable, the missions are all very entertaining too, the combat is serviceable, and the general systems of the world (with jobs and the authority system especially) are great and really immerse you in.
But this game is dragged down by one GIANT thing: the reputation system. In short, it does not matter.
Reputation as a concept is pretty common in a lot of games today; but in 2006, it was pretty impressive. Faction reputation is usually based off of how you treat the members of a faction; whether it’s positive or negative, how you treat them is usually the basis.
In Bully, it’s based off missions and nothing else. You literally cannot do anything to change faction reputation EXCEPT play through the story; so reputation is literally not decided by you. You are incapable of doing anything to change it on your own, and that is insane to me. You can’t align yourself with any of the factions, you can’t pick a side or have a bone to pick with a different group. You HAVE to end up with a certain reputation by the end of certain parts of the story. For the way the plot is set up, it works, but I wish it could be different. It’s so insanely frustrating to me.
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É bom relembrar esse perÃodo em que a Rockstar era uma empresa corajosa e capaz de criar algo com tanta personalidade quanto Bully.
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This is the funniest game that Rockstar have ever made.
If you said to critics and said "Rockstar will make a perfect high school game" they will laugh at you.
The story is so simple but very intresting. Quite disappointing that they don't curse in this game but okay.
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same here! i'd love a sequel with all of the same characters. it could even be the same map, but just more expanded and developed. there's just so, so much that they could do with it. i'd be extremely disappointed if they never get around to doing a bully 2.
Rockstar hasn'tmade a sequel because they low-key know they peaked with this game and to this day know that a sequel wouldn't hold a candle to this and would only end up a disappointment
As much as I want to see a Bully 2, I appreciate that all Rockstar could really do is
a) make the same game again, b) make it worse, or c) make it longer (and probably also worse)
What Rockstar *could* have done in lieu of a sequel is extend the premise - i.e. what if GTA but different - to other settings. Give me Bully but set in a Florida old folks home; or 18th century England with highway men. That's what I want from Rockstar, not a virtual stock market.
wack auto aim/control at times which really made me a hard time at certain missions but its still my favorite R* game, ever. i don't remember rockstar games being written this good, perfectly balanced between complete goofiness and just generally sharply pulled-off satire.
i also love how unhinged the structure of the story at certain points. unlike GTA's theres no proper introduction to several (even main) characters, you just pop into the most random lunatic in town/at school & run fulfiling their request without hesitation after two minutes deranged dialogue
& also have to take some notes on the music, adds a lot to the already scatterbrained atmosphere & also glad the complete absence of additional licensed OST, Shawn Lee killed it just by himself. really, mad respect to the whole art department.
a) make the same game again,
b) make it worse, or
c) make it longer (and probably also worse)
What Rockstar *could* have done in lieu of a sequel is extend the premise - i.e. what if GTA but different - to other settings. Give me Bully but set in a Florida old folks home; or 18th century England with highway men. That's what I want from Rockstar, not a virtual stock market.
i also love how unhinged the structure of the story at certain points. unlike GTA's theres no proper introduction to several (even main) characters, you just pop into the most random lunatic in town/at school & run fulfiling their request without hesitation after two minutes deranged dialogue