Bully 2 - Alternatively, Canis Canem Edit 2 for Europoors

[ShadowAngel785]

Bully overall was a really good game, but sadly it marked a drastic change in Rockstar's philosophy about games, as it started the trend of "no challenge whatsoever", the 'time limits' were absurdly long, the fights were piss easy, the missions were piss easy, there was no challenge and from that moment on GTA (and RDR) became piss easy as well. I always wonder why that was, as if Rockstar thought Bully would only appeal to kids, so they made it beginner/console gamer friendly or as if a bunch of millennials took over the development but before, their games were challenging, with stiff time limits and overwhelming groups of enemies...even the bike races were too simple, even if you only had the shittiest bike.

Still, the game is a lot of fun, with very memorable moments, like the horrible cook (and helping her on a date) and just causing chaos, like stuffing nerds into trash cans.

 

[regalterry]

Only negative aspect of Bully to me is that you're forced to play a ginger manlet. I could perhaps look past him being a ginger, but the manlet part is not tolerable.

 

[Commander Suzdal]

Can we get @Jimmy Hopkins in here?

I played the PS2 version when it came out, and the Scholarship edition on Steam a while ago. Never did manage to make the jump to paint graffiti on the sign on the roof of that one building. Just reading this thread has the soundtrack running through my head.

 

[Deus Exica]

I have beaten this game like forty times on the PS2. A timeless classic through and through.

A couple little weird things I discovered, story NPCs actually have a very small chance of spawning as wandering peds in Bullworth. You can run into Gary, for instance, outside on the grounds.

The NPCs in the asylum are only ever encountered once but can be fought and do have a unique moveset where they run around on all fours.

The desk in the dean's office is a safe zone where NPCs can't grab you so I used to aggro every prefect and pelt them with the slingshot until they died. You can even do this to the principle and his assistant in one mission, I forget which exactly.

 

[The Last Stand]

Bully overall was a really good game, but sadly it marked a drastic change in Rockstar's philosophy about games, as it started the trend of "no challenge whatsoever",

I disagree. Bully was no slouch in the difficulty department, speaking from the Scholarship Edition port on 360.

With that, I cannot get pass shop class because my analog inputs on the quick time event doesn't register despite me rotating AS it appears.

 

[Xenu]

I would like to bring the topic about SWEGTA into this thread, that one youtuber that was obsessed with Bully and Rockstar who I personally think helped grow the popularity surrounding Bully around the early 2010s alongside with his video analysis, mod reviews, game theories or whatever Bully related. However he's a known lolcow in the Grand Theft Auto Grieving Thread for being retarded on Twitter such as wanting to troon out or after he announced he was homeless he started e-begging and got negative reactions for it, he is so lazy that the idea of getting a job bothers him. Other than his retarded shenanigans he was known for hyping for Bully 2 and whenever a current or former Rockstar staff discuss any thing surrounding a sequel. Although Rockstar already cancelled the development for Bully 2 (because they want to switch their focus to develop other titles like RDR2 or GTAVI) but being a hardcore Bully fan he stood delusional and made videos hoping to any insignificant news or any mention about it even going so far to interviewing employees that worked on the sequel.

It's sad really, I loved his content when I was young and I admire his commitment to Bully as a whole, I figured he would move on years later.

 

[Get the rope Macaulay!]

I didnt like it, the gameplay felt too mid. Probably just me, Im suffering from Rockstar fatigue, their games are very well written but surprisingly poorly made and even worse aging, like Bethesda games.

in general the problem of playing older games is that, because they were meant for kids you forget that they're all super short and piss easy, unless you're playing an RPG, or Sim or civ builder.

like i could remember being able to knock out beating an entire game from the ps2 era in a day, maybe a weekend if i really sucked at it.

its crazy how little time it took to beat SNES games too. how the fuck did i play Aladdin for fucking years when it lasts less than a fucking hour?

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

Sometimes i run a playthrought of this game on PC and a old mod pack called "Bully: DE'.

I always liked the combat, and there's a WIP mod which improves that system a lot.

 

[Korpon]

Definitely one of my favorite games as a young teen, I remember spending quite a bit of time trying to find the werewolf myth or even UFO hunting because I randomly heard about it online, good times.

Only negative aspect of Bully to me is that you're forced to play a ginger manlet. I could perhaps look past him being a ginger, but the manlet part is not tolerable.

That was the funniest part, playing as some little shit imp causing mayhem. I loved running up to a prefect or adult in town, lighting their ass up with firecrackers or the spud gun, then scurrying away and hopping on a bike to make a getaway. (90% of the time would result in lil Jimbo getting thrown on the ground which was also funny)

 

[Tomboy Tuti]

in general the problem of playing older games is that, because they were meant for kids you forget that they're all super short and piss easy, unless you're playing an RPG, or Sim or civ builder.

like i could remember being able to knock out beating an entire game from the ps2 era in a day, maybe a weekend if i really sucked at it.

its crazy how little time it took to beat SNES games too. how the fuck did i play Aladdin for fucking years when it lasts less than a fucking hour?

I actually like snes aladdin, even if it's really short it's a very good game (it's shinji mikamis first game, whatd you expect). The problem I have with rockstar is the mechanical fidelity, ai sometimes physics game details etc.

Western games were never as mechanically rich and detailed as japanese games which is why they tried to amp up the story. Rockstar wants to make naughtydog quanticdream type games but also wants to make open world sandboxes. That's a first mistake, you can't do forced linearity good in open worlds, it will ruin immersion to some degree. In the open world, the game mechanics will seem reasonable but when you test them or go for completionist, you realize how unfinished they are.

Spoiler: mechanic sperging

Rockstar follows what I call the generation model. Everything is randomized and generated from templates with a random number of entities when the player plays the game but they lack depth of interaction. If you were to take the cars or NPCs in say gta, depending on the neighborhood and time of day they'll spawn in with different clothing and different brands, giving an illusion of the place being alive. But they are intellectually dead, if you were to follow them they would walk/drive around in circles and not really interact with you or the world, if they were shot they'll mostly run away unless armed. It is to give the world an illusion of being alive despite it actually being dead. Compare this to a japanese typical open world game, say zelda botw or mgsv which operate on fixed models. There is a fixed number of NPCs in the world, they all spawn in areas depending on certain conditions, they have a predictable routine and a large set of world interactions/player interactions. It's more immersive to me personally, it's a tradeoff between more entities less interactivity vs less entities more interactivity. The generational model works for animals (and zombies) cause animals have limited interactions and generally have fluctuating numbers in the environment, that's something rdr1 tends to do well compared to zelda/mgsv. But npc interactions suck. I think Ubi games use a pseudo fixed model for both players and animals but ubi games tend to treat everything in game as disposable and generic.

Bully from what I played of it which is not much, tries to be a bit more arcadey with collectibles and tries to be a brawler of sorts. And it doesn't commit to either style of gameplay cause the dramatic story is the focus, which sucks. Rockstar tends to do that a lot, the core mechanics are very simplistic and basic in service of a dramatic story, they add a lot of gimmicks which look good on the surface but are just gimmicks. There's no commitment to and exploration of the mechanics or even integration of the mechanics in the story like a nintendo or capcom game. It reminded me a lot of Simpsons hit and run funnily enough mechanics wise but in that game it worked cause it's a cartoon.

So I don't think it's completely nostalgia, I like old games if they work well and have good logical solutions for handing things like immersion, mechanical fidelity and gameplay.

 

[TheArtilleryman]

Did anyone else have that experience of wondering why this grown-ass man in orange clothing is able to fight me without consequence? Before finding out about the last clique.

Can we get @Jimmy Hopkins in here?

I played the PS2 version when it came out, and the Scholarship edition on Steam a while ago. Never did manage to make the jump to paint graffiti on the sign on the roof of that one building. Just reading this thread has the soundtrack running through my head.

Would you recommend the Steam Scholarship Edition, or PS2 emulation? I played it on PS2 way back when. SE is just graphical improvements and cut content isn't it?

 

[Commander Suzdal]

Would you recommend the Steam Scholarship Edition, or PS2 emulation? I played it on PS2 way back when. SE is just graphical improvements and cut content isn't it?

I've played them both - Scholarship Edition doesn't add much, but it's nice to have a couple of new classes so that the actual schoolwork lasts farther into the story.
A couple of years ago I tried to replay it on Steam, but ran into a bug that kept me from saving, and after a couple of hours trying to fix it I gave up. This thread made me nostalgic all over again, though, and I'm going to install it this weekend and see if I can find patches.

 

[TheArtilleryman]

I've played them both - Scholarship Edition doesn't add much, but it's nice to have a couple of new classes so that the actual schoolwork lasts farther into the story.
A couple of years ago I tried to replay it on Steam, but ran into a bug that kept me from saving, and after a couple of hours trying to fix it I gave up. This thread made me nostalgic all over again, though, and I'm going to install it this weekend and see if I can find patches.

Update us on how it goes, I may be following.

I forgot how absolutely packed with bangers this soundtrack is. Strong Devo vibes from many of the nerd tracks. There's many notable exclusions from Spotify and the "official" ost. How the hell do you leave this one out:

 

[Scarthew]

Would you recommend the Steam Scholarship Edition, or PS2 emulation? I played it on PS2 way back when. SE is just graphical improvements and cut content isn't it?

pc version with silent patch is good, it has all the scholarship content. Technically the WII version is the best because it has the ability to lock on without blocking but that's a trivial distinction.

 

[TheArtilleryman]

pc version with silent patch is good, it has all the scholarship content. Technically the WII version is the best because it has the ability to lock on without blocking but that's a trivial distinction.

I downloaded it with silent patch and pretty much everything else in this guide (minus the fog remover, reshader and the skateboard skins)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3374677866

It's working really well, looks and sounds great too. The "save anywhere" mod is essential, minimising the damage from crashes, but I've only had one crash since applying the 4gb .exe patch.

 

[The Last Stand]

pc version with silent patch is good, it has all the scholarship content. Technically the WII version is the best because it has the ability to lock on without blocking but that's a trivial distinction.

From my experience, the Wii port of Bully works out of the box. I think that accounts for it being an earlier build from the PS2 port the SE port.

 

[Officer Barbrady]

The best part for me was starting from the bottom being the nobody and reaching the point where you ''Rule the School'' and can beat the fuck out of anybody, especially dickhead Gary.

It gave me the same feeling I got from Tony Hawk's Underground where you conquer the skating world and get to punch that lying sack of shit Eric Sparrow.

Also, I keep dreaming of an eventual port of Bully to the Nintendo Switch. Chances are it won't happen but since Rockstar were happy to release an RDR Switch port back in 2023 I'm holding out hope.

 

[Tinnitus]

It gave me the same feeling I got from Tony Hawk's Underground where you conquer the skating world and get to punch that lying sack of shit Eric Sparrow.

Also, I keep dreaming of an eventual port of Bully to the Nintendo Switch. Chances are it won't happen but since Rockstar were happy to release an RDR Switch port back in 2023 I'm holding out hope.

I'm sorry to bust your bubble but Rockstar really doesn't give a shit about Bully.

Mobile version sits at 1,7/5 since 2022 purely because those retards don't update it for new phones/versions

 

[Officer Barbrady]

Mobile version sits at 1,7/5 since 2022 purely because those retards don't update it for new phones/versions

Oh I know, I bought it years ago when someone managed to port the Android version over to the PS Vita (albeit with a lot of crashing and script failures) and you needed the Android game files to get it running.

On a whim I tried it a few weeks ago on Android and it doesn't even run for me. The Play Store reviews are just full of one star comments confirming it's fucked.

 

[ShadowAngel785]

I'm sorry to bust your bubble but Rockstar really doesn't give a shit about Bully.

Which is sad on one hand, on the other hand...better be thankful. I mean if it was done by the old Rockstar, then having not Bully 2 is a loss, because i can only imagine what fun shit they could have come up once the franchise was established and they got more freedom from their owners. Today though? It would just be a Niggertrannywokenightmare, if you think Rockstar of today could do Bully 2 and make it like the first game, i don't know what to say. I mean even in Bully 1 you could be a fag (and kiss a nigger on top of it) but today you probably would be forced too and there would be no "bullying" because "bullying" is considered evil, so you wouldn't be able to stuff nerds into trashcans or dunk them into toilets, you probably would just lecture 'jocks' on not being assholes.

And despite my criticism about the difficulty, i really love Bully. I bought it on PS2, i laughed about the "controversy" here in germany where a fucking unfunny comedian named Bully thought he could sue Rockstar (only to be reminded that "bully" is not only also a named used by a vehicle company but also what we call a faceoff in hockey, so he just ran off and cried) but it was so much fun i later bought it on PC and played through it so many times and that's what really makes me sad: we will never get something like bully, let alone a proper bully 2 in this fucked up world.

the really only thing that sucks about bully is the lack of music like gta. songs like Don't you forget about me, adult education and other songs do work.