4/5 ★ – vassm's review of Bully.

If I had to imagine a game that embodies 2006, with Blink-182 blasting in the background, Monster Energy ads everywhere, and that quintissential high school movie drama, "Bully" would be it. It's a total time capsule, transporting you straight back to the era of pop-punk and rebellious teens with liberty spikes XD Yet, nearly 20 years later, it's still an absolute blast to play and that is honorable. I went into this playthrough with a wave of nostalgia, having watched PewDiePie's playthrough back in... I think it was 2012 or something, I'd never actually experienced it for myself until now. The janky camera, the choppy frame rate, it all just adds to the charm and I definitely remember this game looking 10x better back then lol. But what really surprised me was how well the gameplay holds up. There was honestly so much to do. The minigames, side missions, and random fights kept me hooked the entire time. It made the game feel longer than expected. The music was sick, and super weird. The songs sounded like they were straight out of Malcolm in the Middle, so it was really fitting that the music was the way it was in this game :P It was really catchy and unique as well, I was constantly humming the different songs. I loved the school mechanics, attending classes, passing (or failing), and dealing with truency. I will say it was really easy to just run away from people trying to chase after you in those situations. I wish the combat was a bit more difficult, especially in that last mission, but the combat was still pretty decent regardless. The characters were all super annoying, obviously for a good reason, but I genuinely wanted to beat them all up lmao. The voice acting was great, but sometimes the audio recordings sounded really blown out. The story was okay. At times, it felt a little disjointed, and I occasionally lost track of the bigger picture amid all the back and forth of the missions. But the missions were so entertaining that it didn't really matter. Plus, the sheer freedom with customizing Jimmy's outfits, fucking around with people, and just doing whatever I wanted was incredible. You can totally see how "Bully" laid the groundwork for Rockstar's future games. I can definitely see why so many people are waiting on a sequel! 8.5/10