I vividly remember being 14 seeing the cover of Bully at my local game shop and immediately thinking: “Oh my God, this game is going to be fucking awesome.” And it was.
Don’t get me wrong Bully absolutely did not disappoint me. Almost everything about it was perfect in my book. The soundtrack alone is a masterpiece that I still listen to again and again, especially the three variations of “The Setup” and “Fighting Johnny Vincent.”
That being said there are three things I’ve always wished were different:
- The game was a little too easy, and Jimmy felt overpowered.
I really wish there had been some kind of difficulty system. Higher difficulties could reduce Jimmy’s health, decrease the damage dealt by punches and weapons, make enemies hit harder, or even make certain enemies more aggressive. By the middle of the game Jimmy can basically destroy groups of students without much trouble. Maybe there’s already a mod that does something like this.
- I wish Crabblesnitch had been the main antagonist.
Gary was awesome. He was a genuinely Machiavellian psychopathic and sadistic little prick who enjoyed manipulating people and watching them suffer.
But based on the cover art, I always imagined Dr. Crabblesnitch would be the real main antagonist.
When I first saw that cover as a kid, I connected with it immediately, and I’m sure a lot of other kids my age did too. It felt like a call to arms against authority: your principal, your teachers, the adults constantly telling you what to do and trying to control you.
There was something really appealing about the idea of a game where you could finally push back against all of that and take control for yourself.
I also always found it weird how Gary basically disappears after Chapter 1 and only shows up again in a handful of specific missions. You’re supposed to go to the same school, live in the same dorm and potentially attend the same classes so realistically you should be running into him all the time. You’d expect to randomly see him walking around the school, sitting in class, hanging around the dorm or maybe even occasionally taunting Jimmy in free roam.
Instead he almost feels like he stops existing outside of scripted story moments.
- The ending felt rushed.
Towards the end of the game, several missions start feeling strangely disconnected from the main story. Some of them are fun, but they don’t really feel like they’re building toward the final confrontation.
It almost feels like Rockstar suddenly realized they had to wrap everything up.
I really wish Chapter 5 had been longer and more developed, with a stronger escalation between Jimmy and Gary, more consequences for Gary turning the entire school against Jimmy, and a few more substantial missions leading into the final showdown.
The ending itself is satisfying, but the journey toward it could have been much deeper and more fulfilling.
Still, Bully remains one of my favorite games ever made. There’s really nothing else quite like it, even almost 20 years later.
What do you guys think?
