Bully: Anniversary Edition - A Mobile Review of Rockstar's Cult Classic
For Rockstar, Bully is a bit of a cult classic, and its mobile adaptation, Bully: Anniversary Edition, brings the charm and chaos of Bullworth Academy to your fingertips. This review dives into the gameplay, story, and overall experience of this mobile port, examining what makes it a worthwhile play for both newcomers and returning fans. Despite its initial release in 2006, the game still offers a fun experience.
Story and Setting: Surviving Bullworth Academy
The game tells the story of Jimmy Hopkins, a fifteen-year-old student who ends up at Bullworth Academy, one of the strictest private schools in the country, after being expelled from more than half a dozen high schools. In this new environment, Jimmy will have to make friends and face up to the various gangs that exert their influence over the school. As a mischievous teenager, Jimmy Hopkins, you’ll stand up to bullies, take on the liars, cheats, and snobs who are the most popular members of the student body and faculty at Bullworth Academy - the corrupt and crumbling prep school with an uptight façade - and ultimately learn to navigate the obstacles of life in the worst school around. If you can survive the school year and outsmart your rivals, you could rule the school.
Gameplay and Controls: Schoolyard Scuffles on the Go
Bully: Anniversary Edition is a 3D action-adventure game where you control Jimmy Hopkins. The controls have moved onto touchscreen pretty well. You've got a stick on the left to move about and a stick on the right to look around. And that leaves you to get to grips with the meat of the story. There's violence here, but it's smart and reasonably well balanced.
The first chapter of this game is essentially the tutorial chapter and your initiation into Bullworth Academy. Unfortunately, the open-world aspect of the game is locked until you beat this chapter. Without any fighting skills or protective weapons, and a large number of students who hate the new kid (a.k.a. you), you are left to fend for yourself. The rundown of the first chapter is to attend classes, learn your way around the school, and of course, build some reputation for yourself.
Fair warning: in this chapter, every clique, besides the nerds, will try to assault you and interrupt the missions you need to progress. These cliques involve the bullies, preps, greasers, jocks and townies. To avoid spoilers, I am not going to detail every chapter of the game and what it entails. However, beating the story missions allows you to build a reputation and slowly earn respect from the various cliques in the game.
Read also: Scholarship Edition English
The story missions in this game are as serious or ridiculous (depending on your point of view), as they are in GTA. For instance, you might find yourself going on a date with the prettiest girl in school, only to have yourself set up in a trap by the greasers. Someone might steal your trophy for winning the town’s bike race. You will have to enter an abandoned apartment in search of some items while greasers are throwing firecrackers and swinging their sledge hammers at you. On the ridiculous end, you might have to help a drunk Santa Claus get his business back by vandalizing the opposing business at their photoshoot.
The gameplay is quite interesting. Similar to GTA and even real life, there are things you can and cannot do. While in high school, you are not allowed to experience an open-world without going through some hoops. For instance, you will get into some trouble for not following the dress code, cutting class, bullying your fellow classmates, or outright physically assaulting a student or prefect. However, just because something is not allowed, does not mean you cannot do it. The weapons you are given are a toned down version of weapons you would find in GTA. Attending Chemistry class can offer you a chem set that allows you to make some stink bombs and firecrackers.
Open-World and Side Activities: More Than Just Detention
As an open-world game, in Bully you have absolute freedom to do whatever you want: participate in illegal street races on your bike, face off against other gangs of kids, attend your high school classes, improve your relationships with friends, and much more. The city is huge and hides lots of secrets.
Bully offers a wide variety of things to do outside the main missions. For instance, there are plenty of collectibles, classes to take, races to complete, costumes to unlock, and much more. The game offers players bike races and go-kart races after completing a certain mission on top of other mini-games. You can attend classes to earn some perks that will help you throughout the game. For example, attending Chemistry class can offer you a chem set that allows you to make some stink bombs and firecrackers. Attending English class will increase your charisma which you can use to either insult your classmates or apologize to class bullies. Side missions allow you to earn money to buy new bikes, ammo and pay off bullies to prevent them from attacking you. This can be helpful, especially early in the game.
Characters and Cliques: A Stereotypical Schoolyard
Aside from Jimmy Hopkins, the characters in this game are overtly ridiculous. While running around the map, you will often hear characters say questionable but hilarious things as they go about their school days. Prefects and teachers will act hostile in a way that screams “midlife crisis.” Cliques fit their respective story archetypes and are extremely stereotypical. Greasers act like the typical teenage wannabe gangsters. Preps flaunt their wealth and find every opportunity to brag about it. Jocks are portrayed as meatheads who love nothing more than beating up a nerd. The nerds constantly play a knockoff version of Dungeons and Dragons while camping at the library or arcade. Townies hate the students. Bullies are just there to be bullies.
Read also: Unlockables in Bully: Scholarship Edition
Graphics and Performance: A Polished Port
10 years after its initial release, in 2016 Rockstar released the game on iOS and Android, under the name Bully: Anniversary Edition. This edition not only has better graphics and fewer bugs than the original game, but is also packed with more content and exclusive mechanics for touch devices.
Issues and Drawbacks
Of course, there are a couple bugs that are an issue. The biggest issue is that sometimes missions fail to load. This requires the player to restart the game, which already takes a hefty amount of time, even with a mid-tier PC. Sometimes, players will randomly fall out of the world, clip through walls, be trapped in certain spots or even clip through the bed. Windows 10 also has a notorious bug that crashes the game.
Mobile Features and Availability: Take Bullworth Anywhere
The Anniversary Edition of Bully has been designed for mobile compatibility and includes four bonus classes and additional non-storyline missions in addition to everything from the original Bully release.
Bully is available on PS2, PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One through backwards compatibility, Wii, iOS, and Android devices. Adventure Free · In‑App Purchases · Designed for iPad Download and play Bully: Anniversary Edition for up to thirty minutes as a free trial. Purchase the full game as a one-time, in-app purchase to play without any time limits.
Compatibility requires iOS 13.0 or later. iPhoneRequires iOS 13.0 or later. iPadRequires iPadOS 13.0 or later. iPod touchRequires iOS 13.0 or later. MacRequires macOS 11.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later.
Read also: In-Depth Bully: Scholarship Edition Completion Guide
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