Rockstar reimagine school days at Bullworth with deadpan humour and GTA flavoured side quests. Jimmy Hopkins remains a savoury lead and the high-school setting, between schemes and goofy classes, ages surprisingly well.
Your verdict
Category
Action Adventure1 player16+
Description
Open-world action by Rockstar Vancouver and Rockstar Games, Japan July 2008. Rebellious teenager Jimmy Hopkins enters Bullworth Academy private boarding school and must navigate between rival cliques - nerds, jocks, preppies and bullies - to assert himself. Melee combat, social missions, school seasons and open-world Bullworth town. Japanese version of the original Bully game.
Bully, the Japanese version of Rockstar's open-world adventure about a schoolboy's antics in a boarding school, the local pressing of a singular-toned title. Harder to find than the Western editions, it appeals to those collecting Rockstar at its source, in its Japanese packaging. Its desirability rests on this rarer regional provenance and the aura of an offbeat game rather than mere availability, in a niche of fans.
A questionable morality
Slipping into the shoes of a boarding-school troublemaker licenses slingshots, firecrackers and playground brawls under the cover of getting through school. The game plays the good-natured-rebellion card, but most days are spent sowing chaos among pupils and teachers. You accept this little program of juvenile delinquency with the amused complicity of a nostalgic underachiever.
Is Bully still worth playing in 2026?
Released in 2008 on Xbox 360, Rockstar's Bully transposes the open world formula into a boarding school, and that shift makes for a game full of bite. Playing Jimmy Hopkins between classes to attend, cliques to face and pranks to orchestrate stays a clever, funny playground, far from the violence of Grand Theft Auto. The sharp writing and the satire of adolescence carry the adventure. The combat and movement mechanics have aged a little. But the charm and inventiveness remain. For fans of narrative open worlds and the Rockstar catalogue curious, this singular title still earns a look.
