I remember as a kid this adventure game alone got me hooked on Bionicle… which really didn’t last past the third arc. But man, I played the heck out of this.
Was there a second adventure game? I vaguely recall one but hitting a roadblock or not liking it for some reason.
last time we inhaled volcanic fumes and met a tiny red person who walked slowly and also saw a blue person. this time we dive deeper into the mystery
BGS: The Beach
“Who are you?”
Not the most tactful response but it’s the first option on the list.
“It’s a great village of many Tohunga, and our leader is the Turaga Nokama. I fear much of it has been destroyed by now!”
“What happened?”
Oh yeah, Maku is a girl. The blue Bionicles are the girl ones. To paraphrase Sans Undertale, “Girl toys are pink. So imagine a blue pink toy instead.”
“Nokama and the others barricaded themselves into a hut to hide, but the Rahi broke the pump and the hut sank beneath the waves!”
It went a little something like this…
VIDEO: Tarakava Attack 
BGM: Ga-Koro
ME: Fearful Event
If you didn’t notice - and based on my understanding of human attention it’s likely you didn’t - compare this screencap with the one above it and you’ll see we’ve changed environs. I don’t know if this is a common bug or not, but in both the versions of the MNOLG I have, Maku pulls this teleportation trick after the Tarakava Attack video.
I have no idea why or how this happens, because it’s not like there’s a later scene where Maku is supposed to be here. Where is ‘here’? Let’s just turn around and take a look…
This isn’t game-breaking or even game-damaging; Maku is still there when you turn back around and her dialogue is unaltered. This isn’t even a sequence break exactly. In the complete MNOLG (or more precisely, in a different version of the complete MNOLG than the one I’m playing), you can technically do the villages in almost any order, as there’s an alternate route to Po-Wahi which wasn’t originally available (I’ll show you in a later update).
Sorry Maku, you were saying something. Something about your people being in danger and there being no time?
“I will try to find Gali. If the Rahi are near the village, she is the only one who can defeat them. She’s on a great quest and may be very far away.”
Not sure who Gali is, but she sounds important.
“The only way to get to Ga-Koro from here is by sea, so you must take my boat, and I will search for the Toa on foot. Good luck! And tell Nokama I am safe!”
And with that, we’re off!
VIDEO: Boat to Ga-Koro 
ME: Ga-Koro Sting
BGS: Ga-Wahi - Falls
Enough sightseeing though, we’ve got a vaguely defined job to do. Let’s take another look at that gate.
There’s a good chance just glancing at the screencap was enough for you to figure out what the puzzle is. On the left is a heavy stone weight, on the right is a seashell dish, and on the ground are some pebbles of varying sizes. This is a scale, and we need to fill the dish so the two sides are balanced. On top of the gate, just below the sign, is a sort of dial. When the two blue dots line up, the sides are balanced.
There’s one big pebble, three medium pebbles, and four small ones. Let’s fill 'er up.
BGS: Ruined Ga-Koro
BGS: Ga-Koro - Diving Pool Hut
BGM: Underwater (w/ ambience) (you should probably listen to this)
Wading through shallow water is a no-no, but diving headfirst into the blue and not coming up for air is A-OK for us. But hey, that music sure is nice. There are a total of four underwater screens, so let’s swim around a little.
The tiny fish are fish. Anyway, I can see a sunken hut over there, so we should probably take a look. Peek in the window and…
Shit, I need that!
BGS: Ruined Ga-Koro
Do you hear something?
“Maku sent me to rescue you!”
“We are trapped here underwater! The door is stuck and we can’t open it! If the village pumps are repaired, the hut will rise to the surface, and we can escape. The Rahi smashed them and pieces fell into the water. If you can find the missing piece and put it back in the pump machine, it will float us back up! I left a Lightstone in my hut. It might help you see underwater. Please hurry!”
There seems to be repeated confusion in this chapter about whether things are singular or plural. It’s like one of my Japanese animes!
But we just got told about free stuff, and as a video game hero we cannot pass up the opportunity to take something that belongs to somebody else. But first, let’s go back to that hut with the diving pool.
BGS: Ga-Koro - Diving Pool Hut
Not only does this handy sack carry all your stuff, but it also puts a little tab in the corner of the screen, uglifying all your screencaps from now on!
I’ve mentioned there being multiple versions of this game before. I believe the version I’m playing now is from 2003. There was another version released in 2006, and in that you start with the backpack and lightstone. When I originally played, I recall having the backpack from the beginning, but not the lightstone, but that may just be the Mandela Effect. There are some other differences between versions, but I’ll bring them up later.
Now for the lightstone…
BGS: Ruined Ga-Koro
Exactly what to do next is a little vague. Let’s put our thinking caps on. We’re looking for a gear. And looking at this screencap…some of those patches of vegetation (or are they starfish?) look kind of like gears.
What we need to do is shine the lightstone on that vegetation - the gear, being metal, will sparkle.
The location of the gear is random - there are, I think, five possible locations. In my case, it happened to be here…
Now we can go fix the pump.
BGS: Ruined Ga-Koro
VIDEO: We Didn’t Quite Save the Day
(you should probably watch this)
But they’ve got good reason to be surprised.
BGM: Gali VS Tarakava (you should probably listen to this)
This is the monster that attacked the village before. It’s a Tarakava, which the lore assures me is a lizard. A really big lizard.
How does a Tarakava type with boxing gloves on? It doesn’t. It’s an animal. Ya weirdo.
Oh, right. We were about to get punched by a 20-foot-tall death monster. When suddenly…
See, this is why you never send a blue to do a red’s job.
ME: Fearful Event
Various other characters explain aspects of this. But in short, Makuta can infect the masks of Rahi (and others), bringing them under his control.
Pretty much every person with a speech bubble has at least two things to say.
By the way, I didn’t point it out before this point, but in Ga-Koro they apparently use bio-luminescent jellyfish for illumination. We could probably just have taken one of those instead of Nokama’s lightstone. Which we are not giving back, obviously.
“Your eyes are filled with questions about the mysteries of Mata Nui, my friend. Giving you some of the answers you seek is small payment for your deeds, but I offer you what knowledge I can. Our astrologer has seen great changes in the skies, and has read the dark future of Mata Nui. The Toa have come and begun their mighty quest to save us from the Makuta. And yet here, in the midst of this upheaval, are you, a brave wanderer in this dangerous land. How may I help you?”
Well, the pressing question I have is…
“Who am I?”
“The Tohunga have forgotten their civilization. Even the Turaga do not have record of all that has come before. But the ocean remembers. Like history, the water holds many secrets in its forbidden depths. It surrounds Mata Nui, and covers it; it watches the island as it sleeps, and remembers. It caught the Toa gently when they descended, and delivered them to us. You are an absolute in these uncertain time. Your past is forgotten, and your future is an empty book. You must find your own destiny, my brave adventurer.”
Well that was rambling and incoherent, but I guess it sounded nice. And how does my identity being unknown make me an absolute? Doesn’t that make me the opposite of an absolute? Like, a variable, even?
“Who is Gali?”
"Gali is the protector of the sea, and of the lakes and rivers that feed it. Her Mask of Power lets her breathe freely beneath the waves.
And it’s translucent. You forgot to mention that. It’s a decent selling point.
“What of Maku?”
“Maku often sneaks out of the village to spy on Huki, the Koli champion. She tells me she is just practicing her boating, but I know the truth. And it is far too dangerous for her to be outside the village now. For her own safety I will forbid her to go, even though her wandering saved us this time.”
‘That thing I thought was a bad thing turned out to be a good thing, but I still think it’s a bad thing’ is definitely peak something.
“If, in your travels to Po-Koro, you should meet Huki, tell him she is safe. He may have heard of the attack and will be worried.”
Well, that’s all from Nokama. My keen intuition tells me that Po-Koro might be our next destination. Or maybe not.
Nokama mentioned an astrologer. Let’s go find her and tell her she’s a fraud and astrology is fake.
Wait I just remembered, Bionicle is a fantasy world. Astrology is real here. Well, let’s talk to her anyway. Prior to the rescue, there was a hut in the village square that was closed and we couldn’t enter, but it’s open now. That’s where the astrologer lives.
There’s a celestial diagram on the leaf above her head, and the text there labels the center sphere “Mata Nui”.
“Who are you?”
“I am the astrologer. I watch the stars, and the water.”
“What are you doing?”
“I am charting changes in the skies. Many important things are happening around Mata Nui, and many more will happen. I use the telescope on the cliff. It tells what will happen, and when.”
“How do I use the telescope?”
If I hadn’t already explained it, Nixie is who would explain how to interpret the telescope.
“It’s very simple. Around the base of the telescope are pictures. They are constellations, patterns of stars in the night sky, and markings that show the prophecies of legends. Each picture has a red star in it. When the Red Star reaches a certain place in the heavens, it means something important will happen here on Mata Nui: one of the prophecies. When you look through the telescope, you will see many stars, and one of them is the Red Star. Look at the constellations near the Red Star. They will look like the ones in the pictures. When the Red Star is exactly where it is shown in one of the pictures, then a prophecy may come true. If something changes in the sky, it is my job to change the pictures, so that I can better see the future. Even though we Tohunga remember the prophecies, nothing is certain… the future can change. If you can read the numbers in the telescope, it is even easier to tell the future.”
I’m not sure exactly what the last statement means. There are numbers (in Bionicle writing) both when looking through the telescope and inscribed on the telescope’s base. The ones in the telescope are constantly changing, so I think the numbers may indicate the date that the next chapter is scheduled to be released, but I haven’t heard anything about that, nor have I translated the numbers myself to check.
There’s still more to see in Ga-Koro. One thing many people likely missed is seeing what’s going on at the hut we raised out of the water.
If you’ll recall from much earlier in this update, there was a part of the village that was inaccessible because it was obstructed by a few inches of water. Let’s see what’s happening over there.
Going further into this section of the village brings us to…
Mailbag Corner:
The Mata Nui Online Game II: The Final Chronicle was a thing that existed. It was significantly more ambitious than the first game, though I don’t think it was any longer, but it’s not something people care much about. I never got past the first area myself. It has both story and gameplay problems, but the big issue with it was that it’s really buggy. I have a vivid memory of walking along the beach and then, after a screen transition, arriving in a white void I couldn’t escape.
On the story front, I think Templar Studios tried to invest the narrative of a degree of thematic/character resonance, but the MNOLG1 was about exploring an island you know nothing about during a time of crisis, while the MNOLG II is about traveling an island you know everything about during peacetime. The potential for compelling narrative is limited.
I’m pretty sure I played this game after it was completed, because I do not remember it being separated into chapters… and I don’t think I ever figured out the Charred Forest. Good thing there’s an alternate path!
And yeah, MNOLG2 was super buggy. I think there was just a point where the game consistently crashed/warped me to the void, right around where you were supposed to play whatever the village’s sport was.
Got a few little things today.
First, I’ve mentioned before that there’s more than one version of the MNOLG. I’ve been using the 2003 version (at least, I think that’s when it was released), but I’ve had issues with recording it, so I’ve switched to the 2006 version. One advantage of the 2006 version is that it can be fullscreened, but I shrink my screencaps so much after recording I’m not sure if that makes a difference. Let me know if you notice one. Anyway, here are the version differences I know of:
Templar Games, as they are now known, has a Tumblr they use very rarely, and occasionally put out posts with concept art and information about the development of the MNOLG. And by ‘occasionally’, I mean they started in 2011 and still aren’t done. These posts are old enough that in several of them the images are broken. But here’s some concept art from the beach I found interesting (you can read the whole post here).
Most of the sketches are the same as the final version, just…sketchier. But there are some slight differences. Here on the cliff, you can see the outcropping the telescope is on was originally connected to the main part of the cliff by a wooden rope bridge. The telescope also has some differences.
This version of the telescope is straightforwardly recognizable as a telescope. There’s also another concept…
There’s also a sketch where the star charts are on the ceiling like a sort of planetarium instead of carved into the telescope’s base. It’s a good image but personally I like the open-air feel of the final version better.
And finally the update itself. I originally intended to combine this and the next update, but this one turned out a little bigger than I expected so I decided it worked better on its own.
Last time we were told we should totally go to Po-Koro and also something bad might be happening in Po-Koro and hmmm. I wonder where we’ll be going today?
The boat drops us off back at the beach, and heading right returns us to the lava-y part of Ta-Wahi.
BGS: Ta-Wahi Fires
Ta-Koro was added to the MNOLG in February, while Ga-Koro was added in March. I put off visiting Ta-Koro earlier for a couple reasons, though in hindsight I’m not sure it was the better presentation. Probably doesn’t matter either way, though.
First, like I said, Ta-Koro is bigger than Ga-Koro, so I liked the visual progression better. Second, I liked the progression of going from a lonely beach to an abandoned town better than going from the beach to a town full of people. And third and least importantly, a lot of people (like me) who played the MNOLG after it was finished miss Ta-Koro the first time, because Maku on the beach is a more obvious prompt.
All that said, let’s chat with these guards.
There’s nothing else to do here, so let’s finally go to Ta-Koro.
Through the gate is…
BGS: Ta-Koro
“But take care. My scouts have reported a build up in Rahi and I fear a massive counter-offensive. There are never enough good warriors to send against the Rahi. You look stout, traveler…you should consider a career in the Guard.”
“Who are you?”
“I lost a lot of good warriors that day. Then Tahu arrived, and now we know why the Rahi are on the move. Vakama says he’ll save us, but I don’t see the point in putting ALL our hope in him. You can never have too much security.”
Ah, so he’s a villain (he isn’t).
“What is Ta-Koro?”
“Most of the people in Ta-Koro farm the lava fields to the north, beneath the Mangai. Many are surfers, riding the lava rapids for sport. Our people are the most courageous warriors in all of Mata Nui, and we are not afraid to challenge the Makuta’s beasts if we must…”
“But we cannot confront the enemy alone, and I do not have faith in the other cities of Mata Nui. If they do not join with us in the defense, we will all perish, Toa or not!”
“What is a Rahi?”
“In recent times they have become bolder, and have forced us back to here. Ta-Koro used to reach all the way to the coast; the Charred Jungle used to be a green, peaceful place, but in the fury of our battles it was burnt. But we are Ta-Koro Matoran, and we will not surrender. And now Tahu, the great fire-spirit, has come to lead us against them.”
“They can attack at any time, although always when it is least expected. That is why we must always be on guard. I have studied them extensively… it is possible that they once were normal creatures, like the others that inhabit Mata Nui, until the Makuta turned them… although I am not certain of this.”
“If it is true, there may be another way to fight them. Until then we must patrol our stockades and our trenches day and night, and keep the guard-fires burning.”
Jala is the one who’s supposed to tell you what Rahi are, and hint about the infected masks. But Ga-Koro just knows about them already.
That’s everything we can learn from him, so we move on to the winch room so we can get into Ta-Koro.
VIDEO: Raising the Bridge
I added the music and slowed the animation. Otherwise it takes like, two seconds.
Let’s head inside.
Despite its apparent size, there isn’t much to do in Ta-Koro. For example, you can see on the left there’s a line of Matoran - they’re doing a dance, but you can’t interact with them. There are a couple of people to talk to though.
Over on the right is someone else.
In the middle of the screen you can see the mouth of a tunnel. It looks like a gate leading further into the city, but it isn’t. This one screen is actually all of Ta-Koro. We’ll see where that tunnel leads in a few updates.
I didn’t get a screencap of the exterior because apparently I just didn’t give a shit and I’m a terrible LPer, but there’s one hut in Ta-Koro we can enter.
BGS: Vakama’s Hut
“But in this, our first hour of hope, you may find the villagers’ patience to be greater than usual. Yes, there is hope in Ta-Koro. Tahu is here. It was Jala who found him. He caught him in a trap intended for a Rahi. It was almost the end of my brave Captain, and of his famous Guard!”
VIDEO: Tahu in the Forest
BGS: Charred Forest
BGM: Suspense 1
BGM: Suspense 2
BGM: Big Drums
ME: Vakama’s Arrival
BGM: Mata Nui Theme
BGS: Vakama’s Hut
Well, we finally found somebody who recognizes us.
“How do you know me?”
Uh…yes? Unfortunately, the game doesn’t let us say as much.
“Who is Tahu?”
“The Legends prophesy six heroes descend from the heavens to Mata Nui, and of them Tahu is the fiercest. But his passage to Mata Nui has left him… uncertain. He has needed help to understand his long-awaited quest. I have told Tahu all I know of the Legends of Mata Nui, and of the Masks of Power. I have done all I can. Now it is up to him to adventure into the wilderness, and find a way to defeat the Makuta.”
Props for being able to work in ‘prophesy’ with an ‘s’. Last on the list of questions…
“Who are you?”
“Surely you still have the Board that I gave you, for that was a special gift. Lava Surfing is a difficult skill, and no Matoran other than those that dwell in Ta-Koro have knowledge of it. It would be a pity if you have forgotten it entirely.”
Board? Nope. Don’t have that. Oh well.
Most of the time, when you say “Goodbye” to somebody they just say “Goodbye” back, or something similar. Jala says “May Tahu protect you, traveler”, for example. Vakama says something more unusual…
I haven’t said as much (or maybe I did at some point but forgot), but the protagonist of the Mata Nui Online Game is Takua. This isn’t clarified until very late in the game. Since Takua will become the Seventh Toa when he puts on the Mask of Light, there’s a pleasing irony to Vakama preparing for the coming of the person he’s already talking to.
I do, however, think it’s also possible that Vakama is referring to the Bohrok. The only reason I think that is that the MNOLG contains repeated foreshadowing for the 2002 storyline, very subtle foreshadowing for plot points not unveiled until 2009, and no foreshadowing of any other story years. So it would be odd if there were a lone reference to 2003’s story.
Anyway, that’s all for Ta-Koro. Next time…
Mailbag Corner
I didn’t play it until it was completed either. They weren’t like, narrative chapters. You’d just do stuff and then not be able to progress any further. Like, at first there was just the beach, and there was no way to leave. Then in February you could reach the Charred Forest and Ta-Koro. Then in March Maku was on the beach. Then in April the boat in Ga-Koro could take you to Po-Koro. Or something like that.
Alright, it doesn’t make sense with the implication that we did something that got us exiled but I think I remember one of the GBA Bionicle games being a prequel to the adventure game and ending with Takua on the beach with amnesia.
last time we went to a volcano and did nothing of consequence. THIS TIME…
If Bionicle was still running today and/or was owned by Disney, there would be at least one high-profile thinkpiece about how the Mata Nui Online Game is mOrE rElEvAnT tHaN eVeR. Anyway.
VIDEO: Boat to Po-Wahi
I just spent like 10 minutes checking if the geography in this shot is correct (it is, except I think Mt. Ihu is too far east (I don’t mind it looks good there)).
BGS: Po-Wahi
“Sorry. Don’t get too many travelers around Po-Wahi these days. What can I do for you? Need a boat? Information? Or a souvenir, maybe?”
“What is Po-Wahi?”
“Po-Wahi is… well, there’s not much to it, really, mostly sand…lots of sand But there are the canyons, which are real pretty to look at, if the sun or the Rahi don’t get you first… and the Path of Prophecies, which the ancient carvers made.”
In the Bohrok animations, it was stated that a Matoran named Hafu carved the Path of Prophecies. But since it’s canonically the case that no one’s been ‘born’ or (I think) died since the Matoran arrived on Mata Nui, I guess he’d still qualify as an ancient carver.
“Po-Koro’s a decent place, too, and don’t miss the games. Most everyone around Mata Nui turns up to see a Koli match, when they’re on. Haven’t been too many visitors lately, though.”
“Goodbye.”
“Stay outta the sun!”
I do wish this guy had some important, or at least useful, or at least…informative information.
We continue on, which leads to a fairly minor presentation issue I have with the MNOLG.
Anyway, we’re looking at signpost at a crossroads.
LEFT: “Po-Koro” / RIGHT: “Quarry”
I don’t see any pressing need to visit a quarry, so left it is.
I wonder where we’ll be going next?
BGS: Po-Wahi
You can see two pinnacles of rock rising above the gate, with a boulder suspended between. I assume the boulder is dropped to block the gate in case of attack.
BGM: Po-Koro (w/ Ambience) (you should probably listen to this)
On the left are two Matoran bartering. The open hut belongs to Po-Koro’s Turaga, Onewa (not to be confused with Onua, Toa of Earth).
"Our Comet balls are the best in Mata Nui. Everyone wants one! Don’t be the only Matoran in Po-Koro without a Comet!
“What is a Koli ball?”
“Why, Koli balls are for playing Koli, of course. You’d want a Comet – our most popular model. Trading for two Husi Pecking Birds, or the equivalent.”
Sounds fun. Maybe? I don’t actually know what Koli is.
“How do I buy a Koli ball?”
“We trade here, like in the rest of the bazaar. If you’ve got something worth trading, I’ll give you a Koli ball for it!”
There was probably supposed to be a minigame or trading quest at some point, but we won’t be doing any trading during our time in Po-Koro. I feel like you should at least be able to pull out your lightstone and he’d tell you that isn’t enough, but no.
Let’s go further into the village. Maybe somebody can tell us what Koli is.
"I sure could use some more teammates to play with. All the others have gone home. They’re not feeling well. Not even Huki can play anymore. And I just got a new Comet! Traded two Husi for it. Hup! Hup! Hup!
“What is Koli?”
“What is Koli? You must not be from around here! Koli is the greatest sport on Mata Nui. It’s incredibly simple, but takes much more skill than the sports they play in other villages! Koli is played in a Koli field. You’re standing in the biggest one in Po-Wahi, but they don’t have to be as fancy as this. All you need is four goals, set up on each side of a square. There are four players. Each of the goals has a Matoran to guard it. To win, you have to kick Koli balls – like this one – into any of the other three goals, while at the same time stopping other players from getting their balls into your goal. That’s it!”
“Who is Huki?”
“Who is Huki! Why, only the greatest Koli player, ever. At least… he was. He fell ill a little while ago, and I haven’t seen him around much. He lives just on the other side of the Koli field.”
We can also ask questions about stuff we already know.
“What is a Comet?”
“A Comet is the best kind of Koli ball you can get. Everyone is getting one of these now. They’re perfectly balanced, so it’s very hard to miss, and when you kick them, they fly as fast as a comet! They only started trading them recently at the bazaar. I don’t know where they get them, but whoever carved them is truly a master.”
Neat. Bye!
You don’t sound so good, dude. Anyway, if we turn around, we can see the stands.
BGM: Po-Koro - Huki’s Hut
“Who are you?”
“I am… Huki…”
“Why are you sick?”
“I don’t know… I have been here for – how many days? I’m not sure anymore… I used to know… You must go. I feel… strange. No one must come here, especially Maku. Do not tell her I am ill, it will worry her… she must not see me like this, she must not…”
Gonna just…back out slowly. Don’t want any, um, flies…on me.
Enough wandering around. Let’s talk to the Turaga. He should be doing something about this.
"You have come at an unhappy time in Po-Koro, I fear. I am about to announce to my people th enews that the next Koli match will have to be cancelled. I do not think even the great Pohatu could play Koli at a time like this.
“Who are you?”
“I am Onewa, Turaga of the village of Po-Koro. The Matoran here are master carvers, and their work is the envy of all Mata Nui. But today I am not carving works of art. Instead, I am fashioning beds. I am struggling to bring comfort to the sick people of this village, but it is a fleeting solace. We know nothing of this illness, how long it might last, or where it comes from. Left unattended, I fear the Madness…”
“Why are you canceling the Koli match?”
“A dark plague has corrupted my people and my village. Though many still stay at their work, and visit the bazaar, and play Koli, they have blinded themselves to the truth, and put strength and duty before fear.”
‘Putting strength and duty before fear’ isn’t how I would describe it. Oh, we’re talking about your disease. Right, sorry.
"Huki, our greatest Koli champion, was one of the first to fall ill. He has become weakened, and cannot move from his bed. I fear that soon we will see in him the beginnings of the Madness, the same diabolical force that grips the wild Rahi when their masks become infected.
It’s kinda out of place to ask this question now, but it’s on the list soooo…
“Who is Pohatu?”
“Pohatu is the Toa of the Po-Koro Matoran. His great strength can fell mountains, and the Kanohi Kakama gives him speed greater than any creature on Mata Nui. The irony is that Pohatu’s strength and speed cannot help us. An enemy that can neither be seen, nor felt plagues us. Vakama, of Ta-Koro, has sent some of his Guard to assist us, but they will not enter the village for fear of falling prey to this disease. Instead, they are combing the hills in search of Pohatu, who is on a grave quest for the Masks of Power. But without knowing even where this illness comes from, there is little anyone can do… even the great Pohatu.”
This chapter encapsulates well the story challenge that Templar had in writing the MNOLG. How do you write around the Toa? The Po-Koro chapter has a simple answer - make the enemy being something you can’t ‘fight’.
As often happens in this game, what to do next is unclear. In fact, it commits a severe gaming sin: the solution is to backtrack for no reason. Specifically, go back to the Koli field.
VIDEO: The Comet
Well, let’s show it to Onewa.
“Hm. But not just any Koli ball; this is the special kind that is being traded at the bazaar, and which has become very popular. Thank you, adventurer, for showing this to me. You are as noble as your reputation, and resourceful.”
I literally picked up a soccer ball off the ground and handed it to you dude.
"However, this is a vital clue. I know that a merchant in the bazaar sells these balls – you must find out from him where these balls come from. But take care. If he is somehow involved in this plot, then he will not want you to find out. The evil that visited Ga-Koro across the waves has come, it seems, to our ocean of sand. I fear the shadow of Makuta has been cast across Po-Koro. I know the source of this evil must be found or all may be lost. If Vakama’s Guard can find the Toa, I will suggest to Pohatu that he seek you out, and together I hope you can do what is necessary. Would that the sick did not need me, or I would come to assist you on your quest.
“I wish you the speed of Pohatu, adventurer.”
(That’s his goodbye line.)
Like Onewa advised, let’s go talk to the merchant again.
“Where do you get your Koli balls?”
Damn, he outfoxed us. By, um…refusing to answer the question.
Once again, it’s not really clear what to do next. And once again, the answer is theft.
Now, there’s a small chance that, if you were playing the game yourself, you could immediately look at this Object and identify what it’s for. You may remember, but I haven’t explored every possible place yet. On my way here, I passed paths to the Quarry and to Onu-Wahi. Now, Onu-Wahi is the next area, and I know Templar doesn’t hate me and my family, so the solution can’t be there. So that leaves the quarry.
BGS: Po-Wahi - Hafu’s Hammer
Left path is the one we want.
BGS: Po-Wahi
BGS: Po-Wahi - Quarry Entrance
You can look at each one close up, and if you do you’ll see the mouth of each statue has a plus-shaped hole, like it could fit the rod-shaped portion of our Object. Our Object has a flame design on it, so it fits into Tahu’s statue. However, the symbol on the Quarry Key (as it’s called on BS01) is random. I think there may be issues with the seed, because I tend to get the same symbol multiple playthroughs in a row, but that could be a coincidence.
The guide for the MNOLG on Speedrun.com (yes, people speedrun the MNOLG) has a chart identifying which symbol goes to which Toa, so I didn’t have to make one myself:
BGM: Quarry Underground
VIDEO: Nui-Jaga Nest
BGM: Quarry Underground
BGM: Makuta Theme
BGM: Quarry Underground
But you know who can?
BGM: Pohatu VS Nui-Jaga
BGM: Pohatu VS Nui-Jaga (you should probably listen to this)
The objective is to destroy all the gross pillars by kicking Koli balls into them. I guess the pillars are holding the cave up. Each pillar takes three hits to destroy, and the Nui-Jaga will try to block your shots. This minigame is tricky only in that there’s an aspect of play that isn’t obvious.
Now, there’s some dialogue I’d thought I’d missed later on in this chapter, so I ended up playing through twice. That taught me about how the sequence triggers in this chapter work.
The Quarry Key is next to the merchant’s stall from the beginning, and you can take it at any time. So you can take the key, go to the quarry, open the underground entrance, and go in all without even knowing about the plague or Comets or anything. If you do, the Nui-Jaga will appear, but Pohatu will not. In a regular game this would be a special game over, but since the MNOLG doesn’t have game overs it just stands there threateningly. For Pohatu to appear, he needs to have been told to look for you, which means you need to have shown the Infected Koli Ball to Onewa.
Speaking of the Infected Koli Ball, I’ve had the guy who has the ball disappear without talking to him, which would shave like 10 seconds off a speedrun, but I don’t know how to force it to happen.
Anyway, two minutes of mashing left click later…
VIDEO: The Final Shot
BGM: Pohatu VS Nui-Jaga
BGS: Po-Wahi
“That was an infected mask, set beside the Koli balls… But who left it there, and placed the balls beside it? Though Po-Koro will be safe now, we have uncovered an even greater mystery. I fear the Makuta’s influence may extend beyond the Rahi, now… I will take this news back to Po-Koro, and help them carry the infected Koli balls into the sea. My Mask of Power will let me get to the village quickly enough, I think, to save even Huki. You are a cunning ally, friend, and brave. I hope that we shall meet again, someday.”
Okay, we did it! We saved the day! And this time it was actually mostly because of us!
Returning to Po-Koro, some things have changed…
BGM: Po-Koro (w/ ambience)
The creepy music has not.
Not in this game, anyway. Apparently he’s in the MNOLG II and is reformed, but he’s actually something of an ascended extra, being made into an actual set and playing a major-ish role in the 2004 storyline (which is a flashback). His name is Ahkmou, and is one of the Matoran who know the locations of the six Great Disks. There’s this whole deal that doesn’t really go anywhere about one of the six Matoran being a traitor and uh…it’s him. Obviously. The early half of the 2004 storyline was intriguing in concept but there wasn’t much to it in the actual telling. One of the Bionicle novels (I think Time Trap) has a scene that explains how Ahkmou started working with Makuta. And he’s briefly mentioned in some of the online serials in like 2009.
Last on the list, let’s check in on Turaga Onewa.
“Pohatu has told me of all your adventures. We, like the Ga-Koro Matoran, will long honor your deeds. Nokama was right when she said you would be witness to many important things transpiring throughout our land. She asked me to watch you, and tell her if I also feel this.”
This is a completely optional stop. In fact, I think I always forgot about it when playing as a kid. If you are going to do it, it makes more sense to wait, because we’re going to have another, mandatory, errand in Ga-Koro not too long from now. But I’m going to do it now, for a couple reasons.
BGM: Ga-Koro
Maku actually has no new dialogue. She’s still worried about Huki.
We might not have a name, but we have an identity.
Next time, we head into the tunnels of Onu-Koro.
Mailbag Corner:
Yes, it was called Tales of the Tohunga (later Quest for the Toa), though I think on the box and cartridge it just said BIONICLE with no subtitle. My friend owned it when I was a kid and I played some, but never beat it myself. The MNOLG is theoretically a sequel to that. According to BioSector01, Takua George our hero was banished from Ta-Koro (right before the events of Quest for the Toa) because of his poor work ethic, which seems…harsh.
This is probably the part of the game I remember the most. I always thought it had a pretty good tone. While it is backtracking, I do appreciate the moment where the active Matoran is suddenly gone. It’s fairly ominous for what amounts to an ancient evil sneezing on piles of soccer balls so they can be sold to local players so they get sick.
My bad, I only barely remembered the GBA game when I was nostalgically reminiscing about the first years of Bionicle and wasn’t sure how much of your commentary was actual questioning the amnesia thing vs. commentary about how it’s a little odd the online game just doesn’t have an answer about the amnesia.
Also I think even as a kid I thought that GBA game kinda blew.
BGS: Po-Wahi
“I heard there’s another Ussal race coming up. Make sure you catch it if you’re in town.”
“Who is Puku?”
Puku on the other hand is a recurring character. At some point she stops being a taxi crab and Takua becomes her owner. The 2003 Takua set includes Puku Pewku, and she’s his ride during Bionicle: Mask of Light.
“What race?”
In 2001, Bionicle Dot Com listed a couple Matoran from each village on its character pages. Other than them, the villagers in the MNOLG don’t have names. Some got backfilled in the MNOLG II, like the astrologer being named Nixie. Ahkmou got retroactively named in 2003. This guy was retconned into name-havery in 2009.
The Midak Skyblasters were weapons used by the Toa in 2008, and in the novel in which they debuted, the Toa decide to name them that because of a Matoran Pohatu knew (and Lewa always wanted to call something a ‘skyblaster’). A fan on BZPower - which was and I think still is the premier Bionicle fansite - suggested the taxi crab guy should be that Matoran. And thus, this guy’s name is Midak.
Lore, eh?
Oh, we still have one last question to ask this guy Midak.
“What is Onu-Koro?”
How informative.
Unlike FFX, riding ze crab is entirely optional. It’s not even more convenient; there are no side-passages or places to get lost or anything like that. And the MNOLG speedrunning community (which I remind you is a thing that exists) has recently determined that the cutscene for going by crab takes slightly longer than walking on a modern computer.
But we’ll ride Puku for the sake of, um, authenticity or something.
BGS: Onu-Wahi Tunnels
BGM: Onu-Koro (you probably should NOT listen to this)
BGM: Onu-Koro - Ussalry Stables
“Try to stay out of the way, Traveler. We’re organizing a patrol. With all the lights out in Onu-Koro, the Rahi have stapped up their raids. Take care when traveling in the deep mines and tunnels–the Kofo-Jaga can appear at any time. Battling them takes special skill.”
We’re going to be hearing a lot about Kofo-Jaga from this guy and some others in this chapter. Kofo-Jaga…do not appear in this chapter, or in any part of the game for that matter. The Onu-Koro chapter was larger and more ambitious in the planning stages than previous ones, but to quote classic science fiction film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Templar Studios choked on their ambition, resulting in a chapter that’s very nearly plotless.
Anyway. Interrogation time.
“Who are you?”
“What are Kofo-Jaga?”
“How do I battle the Kofo-Jaga?”
Okay dude peace out.
BGM: Onu-Koro
Phew, that’s all done.
This is a pretty typical ‘people-coming-to-leader-with-problems’ scenario in a story. Whenua is supposed to appear unduly put-upon, but he really comes across as, at best, indecisive. Like…the Foreman and the Guildmaster want the same thing. And the Captain’s problem is that they can’t mine right now. In other words, the Captain and Guildmaster have too many workers, and the Foreman has too few. I think this might have been a puzzle in Cluefinders: 3rd Grade Adventures…
Moving on.
BGS: Onu-Wahi Tunnels
One thing I do like about moving through the tunnels is that when you approach a landmark, because it’s dark, you can’t see what you’re approaching until you get there, but each landmark in the tunnels is lit by a different number of lights so you know you’re about to reach ‘something’. It’s not a maze, but if it were it would be a much more effective realization of the Charred Forest from Ta-Wahi.
BGM: Onu-Wahi - Digsite
BGM: Onu-Wahi - Digsite (Taipu’s Pickaxe)
“Why are you digging?”
“What is Le-Koro?”
“Who is Onepu?”
That’s all there is to see here, so let’s try the Ta-Koro tunnel. I think the map said there were some rupees that way.
BGS: Onu-Wahi Tunnels
BGS: Onu-Wahi Tunnels
BGS: Ta-Koro
If you F L A S H B A C K to our conversation with Vakama, he mentioned that he’d given us a lava surfboard, though we seem to have lost track of it. There’s a Matoran in Ta-Koro who wanders around with a surfboard under his arm. This is not a challenging puzzle.
BGM: Crisis City
Each of these nine switches can be turned on and off by pressing them, but flipping a switch also flips all the switches horizontally and vertically adjacent to it. The goal is to light them all. Which switches are lit is randomly determined when you start the puzzle.
VIDEO: Fixing the Lava Pump
BGS: Onu-Wahi - Lava Tunnel (Cooled)
BGM: Lightstone Cavern (w/ ambience) (you should probably listen to this)
Lightstones illuminate the tunnels better than torches and don’t attract Kofo-Jaga. The Onu-Matoran can work on the Le-Koro highway much faster and more safely now.
As for the cavern itself, there’s nothing to do here other than admire the ambiance.
We’re now done in Onu-Koro…sort of. Were we to return to the Le-Koro highway digsite, we would be able to proceed to Le-Koro, which is the next chapter. However, there is one more thing we can do in Onu-Koro, and doing it is necessary to access the village after Le-Koro, despite having nothing to do with said village.
BGS: Onu-Koro
BGS: Onu-Wahi Tunnels
Anyway. This guy.
“Who are you?”
“What rock layer?”
“What word from Whenua?”
All stuff we already know. Let’s take the elevator.
“I know an astrologer!”
This guy has some other dialogue, but it’s all stuff we’ve heard at least once before already.
We now need to take this to Nixie in Ga-Koro. You can return to Ga-Koro either via Po-Koro or Ta-Koro. I think Ta-Koro might be faster.
BGM: Ga-Koro
Back to the Great Mine!
BGS: Onu-Wahi Tunnels
Oh, the symbols around the exterior are numbers, indicating clock times, except that apparently the day on this sundial has eighteen periods with ‘1’ at the top, instead of twelve periods with ‘12’ at the top.
BGM: A Strange Discovery (this is the Lightstone Cavern without the mining sounds)
Despite being mandatory to proceed I think this room was originally meant to be optional. I’m a little fuzzy on this, but apparently in 2001 there was a contest you could enter, in which you had to find gold masks in various Bionicle media, decode the Matoran letters next to those masks (in this case the word is “Rahi”), and mail the words into the contest. I think a gold mask made of actual gold was one of the prizes.
BGS: Onu-Wahi Tunnels
Well.
BGM: Onu-Koro
He…doesn’t have anything interesting to say.
“Who are you?”
“What is Onu-Koro?”
“Who is Onua?”
Anyway bye I’m gonna see about going somewhere that isn’t suffocating darkness. Maybe like a tropical jungle or something.
BGM: Onu-Wahi - Digsite
BGM: Onu-Wahi - Digsite (Taipu’s Pickaxe)
VIDEO: Le-Wahi Discovered
A little short on animation. I also think the detour back to Ga-Koro to visit the astrologer works against the mood of the moment. But anyway…
Mailbag Corner:
It definitely has great atmosphere. And it wasn’t until this playthrough that I realized how…dumb this evil plan is. The Matoran get sick from using the Comet balls, but once the Comets are thrown away they get better. So you need to be constantly exposed to them. But once you’re sick and bedridden you’re not using your Comet anymore…
I liked it quite a bit when I played it as a kid, actually, but I got stuck in like the third area. I played it more recently and…yeah, it’s not great.
One thing I appreciate as an Adult going back and looking at a game for Children is how much they tried to make sure machinery still looked like things you could build out of Lego Technic pieces. That plus making sure every character and creature that had a set looks like that set make it seem more unafraid of the source material. Now that I look back on things I wonder if that was one of my problems with the Mask of Light movie, that they made everything look like it stepped off of Beast Machines instead of being a clear animated Lego set.
Today is Bionicle Day! It’s true, it’s 810NICLE Day. This is a thing fans decided. And in honor of this wonderful day, I have a special announcement! I’m going to, um, gradually go through previous updates and like, fix typos and stuff. 
Well, Mask of Light looks pretty awful. Maybe that’s unfair, because figuratively every animated thing not made in Japan looks bad, and it’s just a matter of degree, but still. On a technical level it’s fine, considering it’s a direct-to-DVD movie from 2003, but the designs just suck.
But two of the most important people on the Bionicle team, Bob Thompson and Christian Faber, were closely involved with designing the movie, so clearly that was how they thought it should look. Personally, I don’t see why you’d see a bunch of toys carefully designed so kids would think they were as cool as possible and want to buy them, and say “Well clearly this has to go”.
Before moving on to the next update, I have a little ~bonus content~. There’s a post on Templar Games’ Tumblr here on the absent content in the Onu-Koro chapter (it has minor spoilers for events in this update). The images are broken, but the salient point is that there was supposed to be some kind of minigame in which the Chronicler battled the Kofo-Jaga, ending with him being rescued or aided by Onua. The loss of the minigame resulted in Onua’s absence from his own chapter. As I’d thought, you were originally supposed to be able to trade with the Matoran at the market (specifically for disks to fight the scorpions with). However, there were various other details as well.
Regaining access to the Lightstone Cavern was supposed to lead to the tunnels being better lit (they were supposed to be dimly lit with torches rather than just being dark). Onu-Wahi was apparently meant to be significantly larger, with several aboveground roads with differing terrain. And rather than just going to the market in Onu-Koro, traders were planned to be scattered on various roads throughout the area. Oh, and the Kofo-Jaga (fire scorpions) were originally going to be ‘wolf rats’.
Anyway, on to today’s update…
BGM: A Walk in the Jungle (w/ ambience)
I used to think this song sucked, but it’s actually just really long (for a piece of soundtrack music) and gradually shifts from being both boring and unfitting to pretty cool.
“Onepu was right. It is so beautiful here. Whenua said I should make camp when we break through, but I want to go see Le-Koro and the tree-Matoran…”
Well, he said he saw Le-Koro, so it must be close. Maybe they can help.
BGS: Jungle Ambience
(The previous music continues to play in Le-Koro, I just thought having no music fit the mood better)
VIDEO: Le-Koro Revealed
There’s actually an Easter egg in this cutscene which was only recently discovered (I feel like I’d heard of it before, so maybe it was rediscovered).
“Who are you?”
“What attack?”
“What are Rama?”
“Who are you?”
“Who is Matau?”
“Who is Lewa?”
It’s question three, Takua. The Toa is always question three.
“Goodbye.”
The next sequence trigger, like happens repeatedly in the MNOLG, isn’t difficult but it is odd. You need to go…
VIDEO: Rama Swarm
BGM: Rama Swarm
BGS: Jungle Ambience
What follows is one of the great moments of cinema history.
VIDEO: The Kahu Soars into Battle (you should probably watch this)
SCREENCAP VERSION
BGM: Battle in the Skies - 1st Movement (Takeoff) (you should definitely listen to this)
The battle for Le-Koro begins.
You might be asking yourself, was that Ride of the Valkyries? Yes. Yes it was.
Did you think that was a JOKE? Did you think my evocation of this prestigious 19th-century composer mere JAPERY!? Nay! I planned it ALL!
BGM: Battle in the Skies - 2nd Movement (Jungle)
VIDEO: Kahu Injured 
BGM: Battle in the Skies - 2nd Movement (Jungle)
BGM: Battle in the Skies - 3rd Movement (Clouds)
The big problem with this minigame, making it almost unplayable on modern computers, is that everything just moves too fast. The Nui-Rama zip around the screen too quickly for you to hit reliably, dodging in and giving hits before you can react.
There’s one other thing about this minigame, which is another issue with it in your favor.
Anyway, we were in the clouds.
BGM: Battle in the Skies - 2nd Movement (Jungle)
BGM: Battle in the Skies - 4th Movement (Hive Approach)
Since I mentioned adaptive music, about a year ago I was looking through Game Maker (Studio 1.4) and I discovered it has support for adaptive music. That is, you can create groups of audio files that, when played, the system will ensure are synced up with sample-perfect precision.
That was when I realized I…couldn’t really think of anything I’d want to use adaptive music for. This minigame sort of singlehandedly re-convinced me that adaptive music could be interesting.
These orange Rama will divebomb you on an unfamiliar trajectory, often in pairs. But I promised you the minigame was over, and I didn’t lie. They just…don’t do damage for some reason. I’m not complaining.
VIDEO: Into the Great Hive (there’s actually a difference between this cutscene and my recorded footage so be sure to check the Screencap Edition for some EXCLUSIVE BONUS CONTENT)
BGM: None
ME: Hive Entry
ME: Shock!
According to the treatment on Templar’s blog, the original plan seems to have been that the Matoran were captured to be food for the Nui-Ramas’ larvae. I imagine their Lego liaison disapproved of that idea.
“Keep your voice down, traveler, and sing as you work. And hope Lewa comes to save us.”
“Who are you?”
Our hero has a one-track mind.
“Will Lewa come to save us?”
Sure, Onua was a no-show, but otherwise the Toa have been pretty reliable at arriving conveniently in moments of crisis.
VIDEO: The Fight in the Hive (you should definitely watch this)
BGM: Infected
The Nui-Kopen holds Lewa’s original mask in its claws.
BGM: The Fight in the Hive (you should definitely listen to this)
(The original song may actually have a different name; there are several Hardcastle made and I don’t know which is technically the original. The copyright claim on this song for example says the song’s name is “Killing Machines”, but I know there are other similar songs called “Bionicle Age” and “Obey the Force”.)
BGM: Le-Koro Band - Suva Ceremony (this might be my favorite tune in the game)
This is not canon. As in, this isn’t even in canon to THIS game. When Lewa appears later, he’ll have his regular mask. I think Templar may have misinterpreted or gotten unclear information about how the Toa would obtain their gold masks, and assumed that the Toa just needed to find all the masks, which is not the case.
That’s not important I actually really like this scene.
BGM: Le-Koro Band
“What of Lewa and the Golden Kanohi?”
Next time…well, by process of elimination I’m pretty sure I know where we’re going next.
Checking the site using web.archive.org’s, uh, archives, there was a single capture of the post taken early last year, and it turns out that the images weren’t entirely lost to time. I’ve downloaded them and posted them below:
OnuaGame1
OnuaGame2
OnuaGame3
OnuaGame4
OnuaGame5
OnuaGame6
OnuaGame8 (labeled “OnuaGame7” in the post)
OnuaGame9 (labeled “image” in the post)
If there are any other posts with broken images, it might be worth checking to see if they were also captured by the wayback machine.
Thanks for finding this. I’ve never really used the Wayback Machine myself, so I hadn’t thought of using it.
Before moving onto the next update, here’s some information from Templar’s Tumblr post on the Le-Koro chapter (Original | Web Archive w/ working images).
I’d forgotten why I’d decided to call Part 5 “Deliverance of Le-Koro”. Now I’ve remembered.
There are a few places in the outline where dialogue or scenes were trimmed. This is one such place. The outline also makes no mention of Taipu joining you.
Here’s an odd one. Instead of Nui-Rama, the Rahi are here described as Kahu. I don’t know if Templar mixed up two Rahi, there was a name change on Lego’s side, or something else. In the Quest for the Toa GBA game, I know Matau was captured by Kewa, oddly, so it might be related to that.
Another cut scene. Here it mentions Matau, even though he was carried off in the previous paragraph.
Here’s why Kongu doesn’t have a Second. I mean, I guess it was kind of obvious.
I mentioned this in the update. I’m not sure how something can be both gooey and metallic but it sounds very anime.
Here’s an interesting one. Instead of Onua happening to appear, he gets summoned (in a rather convoluted and farfetched chain of events) by the player using the flute. While I like the idea of the player actively summoning help, and sending a message by playing a flute is a cool idea, I think the simplicity of the final version is better than what’s described in the outline.
Cutting this sequence does explain why the trigger for starting the Fight in the Hive is so arbitrary.
While the scene as described was obviously altered for being (in Lego’s eyes) too overtly violent, Onua winning by figuring out how to effectively use one of his mask powers is more interesting “he was losing but then he punched Lewa in the face and won”.
Some more cut dialogue. There’s a reason I’ve been bringing up each instance of cut dialogue: the story is better without them. A story doesn’t need much exposition. Particularly in something like the MNOLG, where the words aren’t what’s interesting about it.
And now, on to the main event…
Last time, we aided in the rescue of many Matoran from Le-Koro and participated in an extended Apocalypse Now homage, which is kinda fucked up when you think about it. This time…this time we get very cold.
BGM: Le-Koro Band
The programming for the flute - specifically the programming for learning new songs (all one of them) - is not good. If you just play the Song of Fast Travel, nothing will happen. You actually need to click the Flutesong Matau gave you first (which will show you what notes you need to play), then you can play the song. And you need to do this EVERY time you want to fast travel.
The weird programming of the flute does allow for a kind of interesting pro speedrun strat. But I’ll talk about that next time.
BGM: Silence
Well, we’re playing the MNOLG and have no idea what to do next. That means it’s time to backtrack. Specifically, we need to return to Ta-Koro of all places.
BGM: A Walk in the Jungle (w/ ambience)
I also never pointed out how nice the shafts of sunlight shining through the forest canopy look. They look really nice.
BGM: Onu-Wahi - Digsite
BGS: Ta-Koro
“My scouts delivered reports from the other villages today. The news is not good. The Rahi are closing on all sides, and their numbers are too great to count. After the fall of Tren Krom I completely lost contact with the North March.”
“But we will not go quietly into the shadow of Makuta, as long as the light and heat of the great Mangai still blazes! I know of one maneuver that none will expect. I only hope Vakama and the others will listen.”
“What news from the other villages?”
“What maneuver?”
“Vakama says the Toa are gathering at the Kini-Nui, at the center of the island. We must try to protect them while they fulfill their mission. The Turaga must each send heroes to help the Toa at Kini-Nui. The Makuta will not expect it.”
“I must know what happened to North March [sic]. I have no warriors to spare, and you have proven resourceful and true. So I ask you: will you join the Guard?”
“I will join the Guard. What do you need me to do?”
Jala’s dialogue is on the incoherent side (“We need to fortify the villages AND ALSO I need to know what happened at the North March AND ALSO We should send guys to Kini-Nui”), but we’re definitely approaching the endgame here, both literally and figuratively.
By the way, this dialogue from Jala does NOT appear unless you’ve completed the sundial puzzle in Onu-Koro. No, there’s no connection between them, but you have to do it. He has dialogue for reaching this point in the game but not having done the sundial puzzle, but to get it I’d have to play through all of Onu-Koro and Le-Koro again, which I don’t really want to do.
BGM: Cablecar
BGS: Ko-Wahi
ME: Thawing Kopeke (messy recording)
BGS: Ko-Wahi
BGS: Quarry Entrance (I thought they only used this BGS for one screen but I was wrong)
“Who are you?”
“What happened to the Ta-Koronan Guard?”
“Where am I?”
“There you will find meditation and contemplation. It is Turaga Nuju’s way to think on all things, and from his Sanctum on Ihu’s peak one can see far ahead and far behind. In Ko-Koro, we respect knowledge above all things. You must have great knowledge even to step foot within it.” “You are the one who seeks to chronicle this era, and so you will doubtless travel the icy drifts in search of answers. But true sight reveals many things, and knowing the future can be dangerous. That is your choice.”
BGS: Ko-Koro
BGM: Ko-Koro - Sanctum
There are two pieces of writing you can read on the walls of the Sanctum. Both are jokes, though different kinds of joke. This text is harder to make out than it looks, but according to BioSector01 it says “Made by Lego; Produced by CH 6340 Baar Switzerland; Distributed by the Lego Group; DY; 7190 Ailluni Denmark; ©2001 Lego Group”, though I can at least make out enough to see that ‘produced by’ is ‘produktion at’ (it may not be a ‘t’ I can’t make it out).
“What is the Seeking?”
“Who is Nuju?”
“Where is Matoro?”
We’re going into the Drifts, aren’t we?
BGS: Mountain Tunnel
BGS: Ko-Wahi Drifts
The Drifts have what MNOLG speedrunners call “Flag RNG”, because speedrunners give everything a name. The flags in the previous screencaps you saw are in fixed locations, but that’s not the case from here on. Instead, walking forward will send you to a random screen from a pool of possible locations, some of which have flags.
VIDEO: Hunters in the Drifts (you should probably watch this)
This is one video but really two scenes, so I’m breaking the screencap version into two parts.
ME: Beware the Swarm
BGS: Ko-Wahi Drifts
BGS: Mountain Tunnel
ME: Uneasy Horns (messy recording)
BGM: Impending Danger
ME: Threat Revealed
This is a Muaka, a tiger Rahi. Uh…I don’t have anything else to say about it.
BGM: Hunters in the Drifts (yeah listen to this again why not)
Also Kopaka was clearly in the middle before, I have no idea how he switched places.
BGM: Ko-Koro - Sanctum
“Where are the Toa?”
“What will happen to Mata Nui?”
Finally…
“What question?”
Kini-Nui, where the Toa are gathering.
Yeaaaaaaaaaah boy. If Tiny Babby Spammy’s Recollections are anything to go by, Le-Koro was when the game actually picked up because I much more vividly remember all the animated cutscenes from then onward, because I know I used to watch them repeatedly back in the day.
Also if Babby Spammy is anything to go by, the workarounds they found on the no violence thing were still effective at making an action scene a kid could get drawn into.
Before moving on, I have my look at Templar Games’ post on the Ko-Koro chapter, which is here if you want to see it in full. The images are still live this time. As usual, random points of interest follow.
In the final game, Jala makes no mention of having sent members of the Guard to aid other villages. More interestingly, there is apparently significant animosity between Ta-Koro and Ko-Koro. The only remnant of this is Jala’s line that “They [the Guard outpost] watch against Rahi from the frozen heights. They also keep watch on [the] Ko-Koronans.”
While Jala bringing up the importance of Kini-Nui (here called the Temple of the Legend) is the same, the details are different. Here he expresses his intention to move the Guard there, while in the final game he essentially described Nuju’s plan in advance.
Instead of the Ensign, Jala gives the player a Firestaff. This isn’t just cosmetic: in the treatment, the player uses the Firestaff to unfreeze Kopeke instead of the Heat Stone.
The structure of the chapter in the treatment is a little different. Instead of reaching Ko-Koro, moving on to the Drifts, and then returning to Ko-Koro, all the gameplay is front-loaded (Matoro seems to already be in Ko-Koro in the treatment). I like this structure better, though I wouldn’t have minded some more puzzles.
Instead of gathering an alliance to defend the Toa, the purpose of traveling to Kini-Nui is because it is the safest place on the island, and all the Matoran will take refuge there.
I’m of two minds about this. I like it because it makes more sense than the final game, and is more dramatic as well. But I think what is essentially the mass-migration of six towns is a little ‘big’ for this game, and the necessity of animating crowds of hundreds of Matoran would have been a challenge. The final version is also more active and thematically meaningful, since it’s about traveling to protect the protectors, rather than finding a place to hide.
And as a final little note, in the treatment you don’t get the fast-travel Kewa until after Ko-Koro. I think…that’s much better than the final game.
I forgot to mention it in the update, but giving you the Kewa after Le-Koro is not good game design. There are six locations in this game. You’ve visited five of them. You get an item that can warp you to any of the six locations. This is a puzzle with an obvious solution - but that solution is wrong.
Last time, we got told to deliver a letter. This time…we deliver the letter.
Here it is:
Once you’ve shown the letter to the other five Turaga, your inclination is probably to return to Nuju. That inclination, fortunately, is correct.
BGS: Ko-Koro
“You are the Chronicler. I have been looking for you. Vakama wishes to speak to you.”
“What does Vakama want?”
"I only know that it is a matter of great urgency.
And oh yes Kapura, one other little question…
“How did you get here?”
“I practiced, and became skilled. I now know the secret art of traveling great distances by moving very slowly. It is a small matter for me to be wherever I am not. It is a useful skill.”
One thing I discovered while recording footage for the LP is that - appropriately for a being for whom space no longer means anything - Kapura doesn’t just show up in Ko-Koro.
As far as I can tell, he doesn’t show up in Onu-Koro or Le-Koro for some reason.
But anyway, we’re going to see Vakama.
Second is the cablecar back to Ta-Koro. The channel I use as a resource for these videos has the cutscene of the return journey from Ko-Wahi to Ta-Koro, but not from Ta-Koro to Ko-Wahi.
VIDEO: Cablecar to Ta-Koro
“The Toa have left for the Kini-Nui, to begin their final quest. We must help them, but our villages are beset by Rahi on all sides. I ask that you pursue a mission of grave importance.”
“What are the Toa doing?”
“They have recovered the Golden Kanohi, and are en route to Kini-Nui. In the temple is a passage through which they will enter the Makuta’s dark realm.”
“Once inside, the Makuta will attempt to destroy them, and they will be beset by Manas: unimaginable terrors that guard his domain. They will face these fearsome challenges as the Toa Kaita, and there will be great battle.”
Matau didn’t know what the Toa Kaita are, but Nuju did. And Vakama frequently receives prophetic visions, so he’s presumably seen them in a vision.
“I fear he will attempt to seal the Toa in his underworld, imprisoning them there forever. Or, worse, should the Toa attempt to flee, he will set the Rahi to ambush them as they emerge through the passage. With the horrible Manas in front and the Rahi behind, the Toa are caught in a vice that will assuredly crush them.”
“What is my mission?”
“I know you are brave and resourceful, but even you cannot do this alone. You must assemble a fellowship. Of my left and right hands, Jala should remain here to command his Guard and defend Ta-Koro. My left hand is Kapura, who is with you now. He may seem slow and strange to you, but his simple words often carry a hidden wisdom.”
“Go first to the other villages. They are besieged, but I have talked with the Turaga. I’m certain that they can all spare at least one Matoran to aid in this task. Once your Company has been gathered, you must travel to the Kini-Nui. Its road begins where the river ends at Ga-Koro, and falls from a great height.”
Yes, after visiting all the villages, we now have to…visit all the villages again.
Well. We’d better get started.
Since, as Vakama said, our fetch quest is going to end in Ga-Koro, I decided to visit the villages in reverse order, from Ko-Koro backward.
As I’ve said before, every time you want to play the Song of Fast Travel, you have to click its Flutesong. You can think of clicking the Flutesong as turning the flute on. But once you turn it on, the flute doesn’t turn off until it’s used. You can put it away, change screen, watch cutscenes, etc, and the flute will still be ‘on’, waiting for you to finish playing the Song of Fast Travel. So you can play all but one note of the Song of Fast Travel, put the flute away, and then fifteen minutes later take the flute out again, play the last note, and warp to another village.
In a speedrun I believe you flute-buffer while riding Puku. In my case I just started fast-traveling, realized I didn’t want to, and decided to try out this trick I’d read about.
BGM: Ko-Koro Sanctum
“He sees that you are seeking a hero to join your Company. The Ko-Koronans try to stay out of the affairs of others, but this time they have no choice but to act. Nuju says to find Kopeke, his left hand. He dwells in a cave near the cablecar.”
“Kopeke will not offer great company, for he is hard and likes solitude; but you will find that what he lacks in cheer is made up for with strength and skill. He is our greatest sportsman, and also the most skilled in ice-craft. In his hands, a block of ice can become like anything in imagination, from a delicate crystal flower to a gleaming statue of Kopaka, perfect in every detail.”
…Nuju said foreshadowingly.
BGS: Quarry Entrance
“Will you join my party, and come to Kini-Nui?”
Two down, four to go.
BGM: Onu-Wahi - Digsite
They also have the power to cause a music glitch. Even after you leave this room and enter the jungle, the Digsite music will continue playing, drowning out everything else. The Kewa cutscene force-stops all music, so that fixes the problem.
BGM: A Walk in the Jungle (w/ ambience)
“Oh – hello. Matau Singer and Kongu Pilot, uptree they are. Rama-swarm threatens and all good Le-Koronans fly defense. Highbranch home locked and protected. Downtree guard am I, set here because… I fly not.”
You may recall Tamaru was the one who fell out of the tree when the Le-Matoran came out of hiding. He also was the only Matoran not dancing during the celebration.
“Will you join our Company?”
Halfway there. Livin’ on a prayer.
BGM: Onu-Koro
“You are here to find Matoran that might join your quest. It is a hard choice, since the Rahi have been massing underground, and will attack us at any moment!”
“Onepu is brave and strong, and would be the best choice. But he and his Ussalry regiments are needed to defend the caves. Taipu, instead, should go. He is not, perhaps, the brightest Lightstone in Onu-Koro, but his strength is equalled only by his heart.”
“With all the work that goes on here, it is dangerous to let any go with you – let alone our strongest digger. But Taipu has spoken of nothing but you and adventure since his visit to Le-Koro, and so I feel it would be wrong to keep him here. You may take Taipu. He is in the Great Mine, hard at work, as usual.”
BGS: Onu-Wahi Tunnels
“Are we to go on another adventure together? I would like that very much. Mata Nui is truly a wondrous place. I should like to see more of it!”
“Will you join our Company?”
Next stop is Po-Koro.
BGM: Po-Koro
“It seems that dark times have fallen again across my village. Nui-Jaga, and worse, are secretly massing in the deserts outside town.”
Not very well-kept secret.
“I have heard of your mission. You are seeking Matoran to join your Company. These are trying times, and it is hard to part with even my least able craftsmen, but nonetheless I know of the importance of your task.”
"Huki I would send, but he is still recovering from his illness, and he is sorely needed here besides. So instead take my left-hand, Hafu.
Hafu is very proud, and does not always listen to wise counsel, but his digging and stone-craft are matched by none in Po-Koro. Take him with you. Doubtless he is out in the desert, caring for the waysigns on the road, and seeing that no harm comes to his masterworks."
BGS: Po-Wahi
“If you want to see my artwork, you should do so in Po-Koro. It is safer there, although I do not know for how long. Please don’t bother me. I have to finish my masterpiece before the Rahi attack.”
“Will you join our Company?”
The end of the end…
BGS: Ga-Wahi - Falls
BGM: Ga-Koro Rescued (w/ ambience)
“I confess I have feared your arrival. Kotu and Maku are very dear to me, so I am sorry to send them with you on such a dangerous mission. It is harder even to choose which one I would rather see go. Kotu, I think, needs to stay here with me and maintain the village’s defense. So it is Maku, my right hand, which you should take.”
“She has been told to stay in her hut until now, and her love of Huki and adventure has made it a hard punishment. I fear her cheer at being allowed to go outside will blind her to the dangers of your task. Yet, she is good with boats, and her agility and acrobatic training makes her a valuable warrior!”
“The way to the Kini-Nui lies behind the waterfall near our village. It is likely that Maku can find a boat to get through the falls. You will find her in her hut.”
“Good luck, Chronicler.”
All the members of the Chronicler’s Company are the left hands of their respective Turaga, except for Maku, who is the right hand, because Kotu doesn’t even appear in this game.
“I heard Huki was sick, and that you helped him become better. Thank you! I mean… that is, I’m sure the Po-Koronans are glad to have him back. I wish Nokama would let me go visit Huki, but the Rahi are going to attack again, and everyone is building barricades around the village.”
“Will you join our party?”
That’s everyone, which means we can now start our journey to Kini-Nui, the Great Temple. According to both Vakama and Nokama, the road to Kini-Nui begins at Naho Falls.
BGS: Ga-Wahi - Falls
As you might have suspected, we will encounter various obstacles on our way to Kini-Nui, and will need to have one of our party members use their unique skills to overcome it. In this case, we need Maku’s boat.
“I can swim, if we need to cross the falls. But I’m not sure about the others. We need Maku to aid us here.”
“The waterfall is so beautiful! Like a million Lightstones tossed in the air!”
“By Pohatu! Horrid stuff, water. I wouldn’t in it if the Makuta himself were at my back, and don’t know how besides! Try Maku, she has skill in boatcraft.”
“…”
VIDEO: Through the Waterfall
BGS: Behind the Waterfall
BGS: Quarry Entrance
Along with the hints your party-members give at each obstacle, they also have some generic dialogue. This is it:
“If you practice, you can move quickly.”
“It is good to be on an adventure with you again! I thought Nokama would keep me locked up in the village forever.”
“This land is a place of beauty, and also of sadness. There is no greater craftsman than Mata Nui!”
“Are we there yet?”
“With such Company, Makuta-beasts have much to fear!”
And of course Kopeke’s comment is…
“…”
BGS: Kini-Nui Jungle
“That’s odd. There used to be a bridge here… what can have happened to it? Perhaps a flying Le-Koronan can figure a way across.”
“Whether by storm or some darker force, the bridge that stood here is gone for good. Not even I can craft a new one! I have heard tell, though, that Le-Koronans are good with heights and rope.”
“When I stand at the edge and look down, it makes me dizzy.”
Strangely, the 2006 version of the MNOLG is missing a significant portion of the optional dialogue for the journey to Kini-Nui. If I don’t post someone’s comment, that means it’s missing. For example, the one to cross the gap is Tamaru, but his comment is just an empty text box.
However, with recursive quantum algorithms, I believe I have recovered Kopeke’s dialogue for this scene. He originally said…
“…”
Anyway, Tamaru.
VIDEO: Bridging the Ravine
BGM: The Chronicler’s Company - Tamaru
BGS: Kini-Nui Jungle 2
We started in the top right at Naho Falls, and our destination is at the bottom left. Based on the terrain the Company crosses, I believe the route we take is something like due south, then due west, then due south again.
We come to the end of the forest area, and find our path blocked by an avalanche.
“I came this way once, and this rockslide was not here. Something calls forth the very earth to block our path! This is a fell sign. Both Hafu and Taipu might find a way through this, if they work together.”
“Digging in rock is what the Onu-Koronans do best. I will clear a route. But in the caves of my home, a Po-Koronan stonemason is often at hand, to cut and clear.”
“My stonecraft is great indeed, Chronicler! I can cut through these stones. But I should also need great skill at digging, such as Taipu possesses.”
VIDEO: Clearing the Rockslide
BGM: The Chronicler’s Company - Hafu & Taipu
BGM: Silence
“This is the portal to the Kini-Nui. On the other side lies our destination! But I fear our long journey is for nothing, for our astrologer has spoken of these gates. They cannot be opened without the key!”
“These gates are ancient, and fashioned by a hand whose skill rivals even my own. I have not much hope for any who try [to] trespass without the key. Perhaps Kopeke can wield some ice-lore to get us past this place?”
I endorse the phrase “wield some ice-lore”. Kopeke’s comment, if there is one, is missing.
VIDEO: The Great Gate
BGM: The Chronicler’s Company - Kopeke
BGS: Kini-Nui Jungle
VIDEO: The Toa at Kini-Nui
BGS: Kini-Nui Jungle
“This is where we begin our final task. If any of you question our choice, or doubt our chances if we work together, speak now!”
“I have doubted you in the past, Tahu, but no more. I think I speak for all when I say that our only hope is to work together.”
“So I cast my sword with yours, if you will have it.”
“I will have it gladly, Kopaka. You are all in assent?”
All the other Toa nod.
“Then it is decided! Together, the Makuta cannot resist us!”
“Wait, Tahu! Have you give no thought to our return? If the Rahi attack the Temple while we are below, how can we escape?”
“I do not know the answer to that question, Lewa. So grim is this task, that I have not thought it much use to consider anything beyond our meeting with the Makuta.”
“Hold! There is an intruder among us! But…what is this?”
BGM: The Meeting
“Stay your claws, Onua! It is the Chronicler, and his Company! Little one, you are brave indeed, to have come all this way. And I see you have gathered help from all the villages around! Tahu, it is as I hoped. These Matoran can guard the Kini-Nui while we descend, and see that no Rahi attacks us from behind.”
“The Rahi are fearsome. May their hearts prove greater than their size would suggest!”
“In truth it is said that great power can be found in small packages… and that aid can come from places least expected. And besides, we have few options.”
“So be it. Chronicler, it is your doom to remain here, and guard the Kini-Nui at all costs. This deed will be remembered as long as any remain to sing of it! Friends, we have much to do and little time. Let’s go!”
“Your struggles and those of your friends will be much to bear. I shall be with you in heart. Look for me in your dreams. I will come to you then, and speak to you of the things we see underground. Remember them.”
BGS: Silence
That was maybe a few more words than was strictly necessary. Brevity guys, brevity.
We now get a while to sit around and wait before the minigame begins. It’s time to defend Kini-Nui!
ME: Shock!
BGM: Big Drums
There is a slight wrinkle that both confuses things and makes them much easier: many of the Rahi the Matoran mention don’t actually appear in the minigame. The only Rahi to appear are Nui-Rama, Nui-Jaga, Tarakava (Water Tarakava specifically, since at least one party member mentions Sand Tarakava), and Muaka.
The guide on Speedrun Dot Com has a little chart explaining which Matoran are strong against what. Here it is:
As you can see, the matchups are a little…lopsided. Kapura and Taipu are strong against everything. Hafu has one good matchup against the weakest enemy, and Kopeke is strong against the two toughest foes, making him decently useful. Everyone else is either neutral or bad in every matchup.
There is a stat chart both on Templar’s Tumblr post on the Kini-Nui chapter, and on BioSector01, listing the HP, Power, and Agility for each Matoran and Rahi. To be honest, I trust neither those charts nor the in-game party chat.
In short, just mash your way through this damn minigame.
VIDEO: The Battle of Kini-Nui (you should probably watch this, but you have to PROMISE to stop at 1:20, because after that is part of the Toa side of the fight)
BGS: Kini-Nui Jungle
ME: Darkness Sting
BGM: Threatening Strings
BGS: Droning Rama (this plays under the whole rest of the video)
BGM: Big Drums
“It’s horrible!”
“There must be hundreds of Rahi out there!”
“We’re doomed! Doomed!”
“I will stand by you, Chronicler. No matter what.”
BGM: Suspense 1
ME: The Guard Arrives (messy recording)
They land among the Nui-Rama, dropping many of them.
…knocking him unconscious.
Nothing much of note from Templar’s Tumblr post on the Kini-Nui chapter. There’s some myth-making, trying to puff themselves up, probably because the MNOLG is the only thing they’ve ever made that anyone cares about. And starting from the Ko-Koro chapter (which came out in September) onward, they repeatedly bring up 9/11 in relation to their creative process, which is maybe a little offensive.
But let’s wrap up this party.
Last time, other people did most of the work while we took the credit. This time…destiny is fulfilled.
ME: Gali’s Vision
Just so you know, this update is almost all cutscenes. Not that it makes much difference in a screenshot LP.
VIDEO: The Toa Kaita
BGM: Toa Kaita Transformation (you should probably listen to this)
These are the Toa Kaita. Tahu, Onua, and Pohatu combine to form Akama, Toa Kaita of Valor, while Lewa, Gali, and Opaka combine to form Wairuha, Toa Kaita of Wisdom. Each Toa set came with a third of the instructions for their particular combiner. Getting a gold Hau or silver Miru for them to wear was harder.
BGM: Mata Nui Theme
In this cutscene, the Toa Kaita travel separately, and (spoilers) are going to come back together having done essentially nothing while apart. This is another case where for many years no one knew why this happened, and once again it’s because the MNOLG is depicting part of BIONICLE: Legend of Mata Nui in truncated form. Each of the Toa Kaita had a short level in LoMN, so this is a weak preservation of that.
VIDEO: The Manas
BGM: Manas Theme 1
These are the Manas, the mightiest of Makuta’s servants. They’re also the most expensive Bionicle sets, not just of 2001 but I think of all time, weighing in at $100 USD.
Like all the Rahi sets, the Manas came as a pair. However, the Manas were unique in that they were remote controlled, so they could drive around and fight each other. They were basically Technic sets. Since Lego never made any more RC Bionicles, I assume they weren’t popular.
VIDEO: Wairuha VS Manas
This is a fight all in shadow so it’s really hard to tell what’s going on in screencap form, so you know.
BGM: Manas Theme 2 (you should probably listen to this)
VIDEO: Toa Kaita VS Manas (this is the other half of the video that ended the last update)
Like the Hunters in the Drifts video, this cutscene is long and disparate enough I’m going to divide it in two.
ME: Dramatic Whoosh
BGM: Manas Theme 2 (quick reminder that you should probably listen to this)
One leaps at him.
It’s like the droid armies in The Phantom Menace only much dumber. But also not defeated by a 10-year-old so there’s that.
The battle between the Toa and the Manas has been depicted differently in the MNOLG, the Bionicle Chronicles novels, and in a cutscene in Legend of Mata Nui, but none of these agree with the 2001 story bible. In that, the Manas thrive on heat and are weakened by cold. Rather than RC towers, the road guarded by the Manas has heat-generating towers, which the Toa Kaita destroy to slow the Manas and defeat them. This is, in my view, exactly as stupid as the Manas being RC robots.
ME: Mysterious Door
BGM: Silence
“Our link is broken. If you wish to fulfill your destiny, and record the last moments of this time, you must find us.”
ME: Dramatic Whoosh
Phew, that was a long video. Back to…gameplay?
BGM: Kini-Nui Jungle
Despite being on-screen, Hafu has no dialogue.
“Whenua says you should come there, and quickly. But not on foot. Take Puku! She followed us all the way here. I think she has been looking for you.”
VIDEO: Ussal Ride
This is a special cutscene just for this journey. It’s not very interesting.
BGM: Onu-Koro
“They say Gali has called on you. There has been a disturbance in the Great Mine. The Golden Mask you discovered has disappeared, and a passage has opened there.”
“My workers are too afraid to go near it. We believe it is another entrance to the Makuta’s lair. It is your destiny to find the Toa, Chronicler, no matter what the outcome. I hope you have the courage to face it.”
BGM: Onu-Wahi Tunnels
BGM: A Strange Discovery
VIDEO: The Chronicler Descends
Like I said in the thread title. Also in the Ta-Koro update.
BGS: Mangaia
Where Makuta is waiting.
VIDEO: In Makuta’s Lair (it’s the final fight, you should watch this)
This is the longest cutscene in the game by far, so I’m again dividing it in two.
BGM: Silence
ME: Dramatic Whoosh
BGS: Vortex (this plays under the entirety of the dialogue portion of this cutscene)
ME: Pathetic Oboe
“But you–you are–”
“I am that which you have sworn to protect.”
“Tahu, it’s a trick! We must destroy him!”
To explain it without having to also explain the entire backstory, I think the original idea in the story bible was that Makuta was less of a physical enemy and more like a disease, infecting Mata Nui (both the Great Spirit and the island). So he is engrained in the world and can’t be removed from it by physical means.
“The people of the world are builders. But look into their hearts…and you will find that they also have the power to destroy.”
ME: Glaring Eyes
BGM: The Bionicle Music (this isn’t the exact arrangement that plays but whatever here’s the full song)
Makuta’s dialogue suggests he’s going to transform into something, but instead he just starts shooting tentacles at the Toa. In the outline there’s vague description of Makuta transforming into various different forms to fight the Toa, including shadow versions of themselves (that much is in the 2001 story bible). All that was cut, probably because planning and animating that much would be beyond the scope of what Templar could feasibly do, but also this fight - while not exactly complex - is long as it is. Makuta wouldn’t get a physical form until 2003.
BGM: Silence
ME: Mysterious Door
ME: Glaring Eyes
BGM: Fleeing the Bohrok
Except you didn’t wake them, actually Makuta sent a signal to activate the Bohrok prematurely, so it’s not that any particular ONE was woken, they just all woke simultaneously, and…
Look it’s a catchy slogan.
How’s…how’s that going to help?
BGM: Silence
Okay, I’m gonna need a minute to center myself after everything that just happened.
Nonspecific things. And centering myself I think is going to require several linebreaks.
So somebody reading doesn’t accidentally scroll down and see the epilogue…
Before they’ve watched the climax.
Or read the climax.
Or both.
Both is quite likely.
Here’s the epilogue.
BGS: The Beach
VIDEO: Vakama’s Final Speech (it’s the final cutscene, you should watch it)
BGM: Beach Chant (Mata Nui’s Theme w/ ambience)
BGM: The End (please listen to this)
And with that, we’ve made it to the end.
The game has no credits, unfortunately. The only names I know are Paul Mack, Templar’s president, and Justin Luchter, who did the music (“The Bionicle Music” is by Paul Hardcastle, and some of the game’s music, mainly from early chapters, is freeware).
I don’t think it’s possible for me to sum up this game. The Mata Nui Online Game certainly isn’t something I would recommend on its own - not for its story and certainly not for its gameplay. My feelings on this game having finished this LP are pretty much the same as when I started. The backgrounds in this game are lush and beautiful, the use of ambient sound is truly excellent, and there are many standout pieces of music. If you’ve been reading through but skipping the music, my personal favorites are the Mata Nui Theme, Telescope, Underwater, Gali VS Tarakava, Pohatu VS Nui-Jaga, Battle in the Skies, Le-Koro Band - Lewa’s Gold Mask, Sanctum, The Chronicler’s Company (which I undersold in the LP because I don’t feel like there’s a ‘definitive’ version of it), Manas Theme 2, Vakama’s Final Speech, and of course The Bionicle Music’s many arrangements.
I’ve assembled all the BGM, BGS, and ME I recorded for this LP into a playlist here (it’s currently unlisted, but I’ll make it fully public eventually). That means I’ve made the closest thing to a complete OST there is for the Mata Nui Online Game. Your move, Biomedia Project!
But back to my closing thoughts. It would be accurate to call the MNOLG a successful piece of marketing, but that would be belittling it. Templar took some toy prototypes and a list of facts and lore and succeeded in turning it not just into a world, but in a world players wanted to come to understand. A mystery people wanted to know the answer to.
It’s just too bad no one ever made a Bionicle video game ever again. Ever. Again. EVER.
The final battle was probably the cutscene I rewatched most as a kid. So separating myself from nostalgia is probably impossible. But I still do love the big reveal that Makuta is not a bigger, gnarlier-looking evil overlord but a swirling mass of parts (because they decided that everything looks like its set) and a dispassionate personality works for me.
It might be impossible to quantify, but I wonder what the return on investment was for the online game. Because this had me hooked on Bionicle up until they dropped these characters after the Mask of Light story. But this wasn’t the only character-themed Technic inspired line that they tried, and I don’t think any others endured as well as Bionicle. So was the game (and the rest of their story investment) that much of a success or was it just the executives deciding to stick with a line?
Regardless, thank you for the blast from the past.
Anyway, MNOG is really neat. Maybe a little underwhelming coming back to it after all these years, but I still think it’s a good example of flash adventure games from this period. I also like that they went with making the main character an observer to the Cool Heroes rather than one of the Cool Heroes themselves. It wouldn’t have fit to have, say, Tahu go around doing adventure game stuff.
Hello, @moderators, this LP is done and can go to Completed. Please keep it open such that future generations may continue the conversation.
I agree the mass of parts is cool, and it fits the feel of the game well. It also makes sense for Makuta as a spirit to lack a definite physical form. If Legend of Mata Nui had had a design for Makuta, we probably would have seen that instead, but it seems Saffire had pretty much no idea what they were going to do for the final level of LoMN.
The return Lego got on the MNOLG was probably pretty good, though like you said it’s impossible to know for sure. Bionicle in 2001 had a lot of things telling stories set in that world (for example, I think the Tohunga Happy Meal toys came with mini-comics), but nothing told the big, overarching Story, because LoMN never came out. The MNOLG ended up being that backbone. My guess is that it didn’t create many new fans, but it probably flipped a lot of people from being casual fans who got like a Toa and a Happy Meal toy to being invested, long-term fans who would be buying lots of sets in the future.
And the game was probably pretty cheap to make, too.
I tried out Knights Kingdom as a kid. Bionicle just looked cooler, so that’s several points in its favor before you even get to the story side. That’s always going to count more than any Flash game, no matter how atmospheric it is. And Bionicle had Happy Meal toys and comics you could buy in the grocery store, which seems like a great marketing position to be in to me.
But the more compelling story (or more accurately, the more compelling world) on Bionicle’s side was surely a factor, too. Thinking back on it, Knights Kingdom took some weird lessons from Bionicle. Like, all the knights were named after their home province, like how the Toa have names related to their village. Only in Bionicle’s case the villages are named after the Toa, whereas in Knights Kingdom I guess every knight from Talonjay has Jay in his name or something. Did you think I only bought Tahu because he has ‘Ta’ in his name?
That’s definitely an aspect of the MNOLG’s success. In any story, no matter who your protagonist is or what they’re doing, it becomes ‘normal’. You need a Chronicler Watson to give some perspective.
I’m kind of burned out on Bionicle now, so my next LP will be…something that isn’t Bionicle. I’m not going to reveal my next project (partly because I haven’t 100% decided yet), but I will give…a hint! My next LP…is not the greatest JRPG of all time.
Got that? Place your bets.
