While everything about Naughty Bear seems enjoyable on paper, the actual application falls very short of the mark.
Anyway:
Naughty Bear is a bear living in a place called Paradise Island. Naughty is a pariah amongst his adorable teddy bear ilk. The other bears, with names like Cuddles, Chubby, and Daddles, all pick on Naughty and hurt his feelings. In the first chapter of Naughty's story Daddles is having a birthday party and Naughty wasn't invited. When he attempts to at least go give Daddles the present he made for him the other bears mock and ridicule him. In another chapter Cuddles is working with the military strapping cameras to the heads of birds and using them to spy on Naughty. These things drive Naughty to seek revenge, so he beings slaughtering the other bears in a bid for fluffy vengeance.
He doesn't just hack and slash. Sufficiently weakening a bear with any weapon enables Naughty to perform an Ultra Kill. He can perform environmental kills when his potential victims put themselves in the right place. In addition he can also drive bears insane and then "push them over the edge", causing them to take their own lives with whatever weapon they may be holding. The first time you watch a bear blow his fluffy brains out or commit hari kari is pretty sarisfying.
The over-all presentation starts with a storybook parody vibe, complete with a British narrator with an overwhelmingly condescending tone. Meanwhile the story unfolds in a very linear fashion. Each chapter begins with a short cinematic explaining what wrong a particular bear is inflicting upon Naughty and why it must be punished (eliminated). Of course, the narrator is in perfect form with his condescension. Each chapter has a few sections of the island in which to play, but the subsequent area of each is locked until you rack up so many you points to unlock the bridge or the gate to it. Since there are points involved your performance can earn you rewards based on how many your earn. You can earn a bronze, silver, gold, or platinum trophy and the number of trophies you acquire is how you unlock successive chapters.
This all sounds hilarious, like a perfect darkly comedic romp that those of us with a chemical imbalance could really enjoy. And, at first, you can enjoy it. When you first perform each weapon's unique ultra kill it's pretty enjoyable. When you first torment a bear into committing suicide or perform an environmental kill it is terribly rewarding. The problem is these animations are limited and become very repetitive very quickly. There are still some clipping issues which make the animations seem awkward and lacking polish. When you beat a bear to the point that you can perform an ultra kill scaring it is no longer an option so you can't drive it mad. When you try to beat on a bear you will score a couple of hits and then it gets scared off. It flees in terror for several seconds before it can regroup and try you again. This is more of a nuisance than anything else because there is no lock-on system and the fleeing bear normally only retreats a few steps before stumbling and falling down or stopping to gasp for breath. It leaves you chasing down your escaping victim in an attempt to get back to them. This often leaves you vulnerable to attack by cop or army bears who carry firearms. When you die it's usually because of terrifically cheap circumstances that left you defenseless and overwhelmed. You can normally throw off the heat, or even duck suspicion from the other bears (until they start finding their dead brethren) by walking into "the woods". There are areas of the game world with trees and such all around the game refers to as "woods". Walking into this area Naughty stoops down and hides his face with a fake plant. Magically none of the other bears can see Naughty in the woods.
The whole presentation is just a case of "almost but not quite". The idea is wonderful. The execution is dreadful. Even with some of the more painful issues being addressed in the Gold Edition there are still some serious problems. Sometimes during ultra kill animations the camera clips into the environment and you lose site of everything.
The biggest issue the game has is progression. Since the game follows this awkward method of moving forward even the story feels broken and inconsistent. And then, unlocking the next chapter becomes a massive pain. It stands to reason that if you earn, say, a gold trophy on a level then, you earned a bronze and a silver because you had to get them before you got the gold. However, the game doesn't see it that way. To unlock something that requires two bronze trophies you have to earn two bronze trophies. And if you already earned a gold then you can't go back and earn the bronze. It doesn't count. This creates several stumbling blocks which left the game largely unplayable to me. I don't mind having to replay a level to earn a better score. I do mind having to sandbag and play a level over and over simply because I have to earn the bronze, then the silver, then the gold, then the platinum.
Each chapter features sub-challenges like "Insanity Challenges" or "Invisible Challenges" which you unlock by earning trophies and can earn you trophies towards advancement. These require things like having to drive all the bears mad, only being seen a maximum of so many times, only killing bears with environmental kills or pushing a bear over the edge. These get equally repetitive and frustrating.
In closing: I'm not going to waste any more of my time writing this review since I decided not to waste any more of my time playing this game. If you're looking for a dark comedy type of romp then look elsewhere. This game has too many flaws and too many short-comings to be enjoyable. The concept seems like a great place to start building a franchise. Unfortunately this idea was so poorly executed that it falls so far short of the mark that there is nothing in it for anyone to enjoy.