Though European as I may be, I refuse to refer to is as it’s European title “Canis Canim Edit” which supposedly came out of pressure on Rockstar to censor the title (over informed parents and such assuming the game was promoting bullying).
“Bully” followed a train of awesome releases from Rockstar Games throughout the PlayStation 2 era. “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas”, and “The Warriors” preceeded it in the 2 fall/ autumn release calendars in the years ahead of it, and speaking personally as a fan of both those 2 games you can certainly see the progression of certain ideas within the 3rd person gameplay.