This review contains spoilers
Bully is one of the cursed games from my childhood that I could never seem to complete due to being my underdeveloped, unmotivated, easily distracted baby brain.
Now returning roughly a decade later, I can say that the game is just as fun as it was the day I first played it. To say the game has a large variety of objectives to keep you entertained would be selling it short, as there’s everything from mini games, side tasks, missions, side missions, and even classes that all help build and enhance the gameplay experience.
The weapon wheel is just awesome. There’s even so many that you’ll have a tool for just about any purpose you can think up. It can also be kind of a drawback when you’re attempting to scroll through a dozen things to get to one that you’re specifically looking for, but nonetheless they’re almost all very useful.
You even have a variety transportation to choose from, as you’re given a skateboard early on and increasingly acquire more things such as bikes, mopeds, and even a go kart! All of this makes getting around the map so much fun!
Speaking of the map… woah! What a massive undertaking this must have been for the developers. This is the most well realized open world I’ve played all the way through so far for this era. It puts the other open world game I played recently, Gun, to shame! To be fair though, Gun still utilized it’s open world very well. But there’s everything from the school, secret tunnels, an asylum, different cities, beaches, a carnival, and large neighborhoods to really make exploring a much better time. Including different save spots across the map was also a brilliant idea.
The levels are often very intricately designed, and I can’t help but adore all of the meticulously crafted work that was poured into nearly every single one. Where the game does begin to lose me though, is the story and it’s characters. Sure, it’s not necessarily a game that needs those things to be good in order to be enjoyable… but I think a better script would’ve made this one of the best games I’ve ever played.
Jimmy is a pretty shallow character without a lot of depth… but to make matters worse, the antagonist of the game has even less development than him, only really being included in a chapter and a half of the story; and that’s being generous.
I don’t really understand why they chose Gary as the main antagonist as he really doesn’t serve much of a purpose other than to make things harder on Jimmy. I feel as though the story would’ve been more interesting if they doubled down on the schools corruption by making the main antagonist the principal instead. It just would’ve made for a more focused story with a stronger message about bullying as Jimmy’s goal was to clean the school up anyway.
But alas, Rockstar isn’t usually as focused on getting a message across as they are an experience. One that was delivered excellently regardless.
Now returning roughly a decade later, I can say that the game is just as fun as it was the day I first played it. To say the game has a large variety of objectives to keep you entertained would be selling it short, as there’s everything from mini games, side tasks, missions, side missions, and even classes that all help build and enhance the gameplay experience.
The weapon wheel is just awesome. There’s even so many that you’ll have a tool for just about any purpose you can think up. It can also be kind of a drawback when you’re attempting to scroll through a dozen things to get to one that you’re specifically looking for, but nonetheless they’re almost all very useful.
You even have a variety transportation to choose from, as you’re given a skateboard early on and increasingly acquire more things such as bikes, mopeds, and even a go kart! All of this makes getting around the map so much fun!
Speaking of the map… woah! What a massive undertaking this must have been for the developers. This is the most well realized open world I’ve played all the way through so far for this era. It puts the other open world game I played recently, Gun, to shame! To be fair though, Gun still utilized it’s open world very well. But there’s everything from the school, secret tunnels, an asylum, different cities, beaches, a carnival, and large neighborhoods to really make exploring a much better time. Including different save spots across the map was also a brilliant idea.
The levels are often very intricately designed, and I can’t help but adore all of the meticulously crafted work that was poured into nearly every single one. Where the game does begin to lose me though, is the story and it’s characters. Sure, it’s not necessarily a game that needs those things to be good in order to be enjoyable… but I think a better script would’ve made this one of the best games I’ve ever played.
Jimmy is a pretty shallow character without a lot of depth… but to make matters worse, the antagonist of the game has even less development than him, only really being included in a chapter and a half of the story; and that’s being generous.
I don’t really understand why they chose Gary as the main antagonist as he really doesn’t serve much of a purpose other than to make things harder on Jimmy. I feel as though the story would’ve been more interesting if they doubled down on the schools corruption by making the main antagonist the principal instead. It just would’ve made for a more focused story with a stronger message about bullying as Jimmy’s goal was to clean the school up anyway.
But alas, Rockstar isn’t usually as focused on getting a message across as they are an experience. One that was delivered excellently regardless.