A game that has so much charm and wit like this shouldn’t have such an interesting underlying message within it, but it does. Trying to please everyone will end up pleasing no one in the end. It’s only by getting to the root of the problem that you can truly be happy. Gary as an antagonist is a mentally ill psychopath who has managed to convince the entire school throughout the game that you are the spawn of Satan. It’s up to you to beat up everyone into submission and make them your friend. Along the way you’ll meet some absolutely corrupt, perverted, and downright evil teachers and staff that you help throughout the game. It drives home the fact that it’s not only the students who are bullies. Going through the different factions one by one and “bullying the bullies” is a good bit of hypocrisy by Jimmy who only knows one way of operation: force. He ends up having the entire school sucking up to him but Gary proves he’s one step ahead and pulls some wacky pranks on the nerds, jocks, and greasers and blames it all on you. The townies are the last group to handle and they end up being your best allies as they were being directly brainwashed by Gary. Edgar and his friends help you corner Gary at the academy, and you finally get to fight him for manipulating the entire school. After the fight you end up in the headmaster’s office where you find out he heard Gary yapping before the fight about how he used everyone to his advantage. He then expels Gary and reinstates Jimmy and his friend Zoe and everyone lives happily ever after. This is the most mid 2000s game of all time. Plays like it too. Definitely a fun experience however, and it’s a shame AAA developers don’t create games like this too often because there is a lot of collectibles, side missions, and mini-games that make Bully feel like a huge world despite it being a quarter of the size GTA 5 is. The story and gameplay loop being the way it is does sour me a bit, but the overall vibe of the game is inviting.