I gotta say, going into this game I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did, usually Rockstar's games are just... alright for me, they're weighty and/or awkward to control, laggy, and just focus on things being far too cinematic to enjoy the game-y aspects of it, and end up making the experience a little dull by overdoing the large open worlds.

But Bully feels like it's not even made by Rockstar, it's a very VERY arcade-y game, the area is very small and it focuses on just being charming before cinematic.
However I don't recommend playing the PC port, or the Scholarship Edition in general, the PC port is crap and you'll need a patch to make it function without crashing and to enable 60fps, the MKB controls are terrible especially without rebinding, and the restored cut content is pretty mediocre and just pads out the game to a level that just starts to get a bit dull, and there's a few new bugs like certain voice lines being incredibly loud for no reason, and a few lines are swapped out for lifeless, bitcrushed placeholder ones.

Gameplay is pretty decent, it's nothing difficult and the fighting only involves different combos of the same button, and a grab attack on another button (as well as some other weapons but they're a bit clunky, so they don't get used much outside of dedicated missions) but past the simplicity of it, it's just simply kind of fun, it's fun to just start pounding on some dude, comboing him to the ground and then grabbing onto him while he's on the ground and punching his teeth in.

The different factions don't really offer a whole lot in the gameplay past some slight changes, the biggest of them being the upper and lower ends of the spectrum end up being a stark contrast to anything in the middle, the Nerds are total pushovers and get destroyed in an instant and the Dropouts are far tankier than any other enemy and have way more threatening attacks.

The missions with unique gameplay quirks, like turret sections where you defend a target or an area etc. are pretty boring and get repetitive pretty fast, but there's enough variety to at least be fun enough, stealth missions are a bit dull but there's not many of them.

The police/precincts being able to grab you and instantly arrest you if you're at maximum wanted level is a bit annoying, but soon enough you learn that outside of a rare spawn that has a melee weapon equipped, most enemies are easy enough to outrun, and it makes it a bit fun trying to beat up the otherwise forbidden types of NPCs, like the children, girls and adults, and seeing how much you can get away with before you have to leg it out of there, In general I found the combat loop fun enough that I spent a lot of my time in-between missions just beating up random NPCs for fun.

The minigames for the classes are a bit dull and I didn't bother to engage with most of them after the first go through, but you actually aren't required to do any of them, and can just skip class the entire game, which I think is a perfect execution, all you miss out on is some unlockables for failing/skipping them, and the faction challenge minigames were also skippable as well, which is good considering I wasn't a fan of any of the ones I played.

Standard mission design is fun enough, usually just journeying through areas beating the snot out of other kids and then getting paid, pretty short, pretty simple, but it passes.

Onto the story, it's a pretty simple tale of a fish out of water kid coming to a new school and trying to unite the cliques, saves the day, gets respected by everyone and gets the girl, nothing crazy but the tone of the game is of those old campy high-school movies, so it fits.

Characters are pretty nice, Gary (at least when he's IN the game, he pretty much vanishes until the final level after like chapter 1) is a funny guy, even though he's a total asshole sociopath, and Jimmy is similarly enjoyable as a tough-guy wise-ass always picking a fight with someone, Petey however... kind of doesn't exist, he's just kind of the meek pushover and nothing changes for him other than Jimmy helping him out at the end of the game.

Faction leaders are all alright but they're pretty much just cardboard cutout stereotypes of what you'd expect their faction to be, the Nerd leader is a gizmo-creating pervert, the Preppy leader is a snobby rich kid who uses his friends as assets, the Jock leader is a football team lead, etc. etc. It's serviceable, but a bit dull and had room for a bit more wiggle room considering how many empty missions there are.

Pacing is a bit all over the place though, Chapter 1 is the best paced as it's just introducing you to everything somewhat slowly, focusing on the trio of Gary, Jimmy and Petey (honestly the whole game would have been way better if it focused on their dynamic rather than slinging you into just cleaning up factions for the rest of the game until the final level) and the hijinks they get up to, it's really the highlight of the game as that's when it really feels like a playable high-school B-movie, they get up to antics like pranking kids on Halloween dressed up in character appropriate costumes, but before you know it suddenly Gary betrays you (probably would have been better as the ending twist, and would rhyme with other Rockstar games) and suddenly you're just cleaning out factions, then next thing you know it's Christmas, then it's more factions, and again and again and again, one thing just HAPPENS, sometimes things are out of order, you'll do a mission for the Greasers and then do 5 missions in a row undermining them, and it just feels all over the place, then you've got the last chapter where you're catapulted into a new area with a new faction who are the BIG force fucking with everyone else, dethroning you within the span of like 30 minutes, you go there, meet a girl and literally within 30 seconds of meeting her you're planning how to get revenge on a teacher who wronged her, and within 5 minutes of total screentime together she's a love interest, and in the next scene they're kissing, it feels like there was a whole chapter missing from the game at that point, but on the other hand it does play into the B-movie vibes a bit, so maybe the weirdly suddenly development and lack of it for other characters is inspired by that, IDK.

The graphics for the game are a bit dated though, they're the same style of psuedo-realism seen in games like the GTA Trilogy, but they make it age not so bad by having everything have a nice sense of identifiable color to it and making character designs more like caricatures than real people, though it's not perfect, you'll still see some weird looking faces and animations for them.
The music however, is GREAT, Shawn Lee, the tracks really feel like they're straight out of a classic movie, the bass in most of the tracks, the post-punk style that a lot of the fight themes have, the super 80's chase themes, and the general walking around theme, it's all great, the variety really sells the experience and the variety for each faction's fight theme is great, it's easily the biggest factor for keeping the tone intact with the game, I can only hope that he gets his talents recognized in another game at some point.

Bully is a great game, and any fan of any GTA-esque open world game should have already played this game by now, it's a gem made by a company known for some pretty same-y yet industry leading shlock, give it a try if you haven't already.