I know there is a review thread dedicated to stuff somewhat similar to this, but I believe that this thread really stands out on its own. These are my faults with the game design in detail and not really a review more than a legit series of complaints.
1. The skateboard is very annoying. When you're crouched and you skim past it in your equip you go out of crouch mode, potentially damaging a stealth mission. This also hurts in combat, when you need a weapon yet are given the board. It's also annoying when you're running and cycling through your equip and it puts it on you even for a brief time (this effects things if you are being chased or running away). Finally, the two button push has allowed for several mistakes. Why not make a four button push only? That would take it out of the equip where it gets in the way and make it harder for one to make mistakes and equip it accidentally.
2. It's possible to skip cutscenes in the game by already having necessary things. The only example that I can think of was a mission where you were supposed to egg somebody's house. Now, if you already had eggs you were set and ready to go. However, you missed a cutscene because you already had the eggs you needed and therefore missed an interaction between a store clerk and Jimmy. This is not critical to the gameplay, but for the enjoyment it is immense as the cutscenes are very well written and one would like to see each and every cutscene available.
*I wouldn't be opposed to not seeing every cutscene if it were a branching storyline, but Bully was not a game with a branching storyline.
3. There were times when I was riding a bike and dropped off the bike because of a store or mission I wanted to do yet the bike was close to the marker and I couldn't get in and would instead get back on my bike. Why not have it so you walk into stores and missions and have one button that allows you to ride things/activate things? If you were escaping this would be especially handy because otherwise you might be tripped up when you intend to go to a store yet get on a bike.
4. In that same vein, sometimes in significant combat scenarios my character would do things that I wouldn't want it too. In the fight with the Townie leader, for instance, you have to pick up pipes and fight. I would run towards a pipe and press triangle while I was facing the pipe but the Townie was near me and my character would default to grabbing the Townie's pipe instead of the hanging pipe. Also, because that fight had you pressing the triangle button often, I would drop my pipe when I didn't intend to.
Here's a series of solutions for the problems that I have outlined:
Make the skateboard only equippable via a simultay four button press (L1, L2, R1, R2) and not part of the equip list.
Unless there is a branching storyline, make sure each and every cutscene is viewable. The writing in Bully is so good that you don't want to miss any of it.
Redo some of the buttons in the game: Instead of having one button for action, branch things out. Make running into stores/missions exactly that, where you physically move your character to the destination. Make one action button that activates things. Make a separate button do grappling moves, perhaps only eligible when you're locked on to a target. That would separate three different things that conflict with each other. The triangle button for all three has caused problems that shouldn't have happened.
