Mata Nui Online Game

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"There is no single, clear goal for you to accomplish -- finding your true purpose is up to you, and it may or may not be possible to 'win the game.'"
BIONICLE.com


Mata Nui Online Game
Online Game
Platform Online; BIONICLE.com
Controls Mouse


The Mata Nui Online Game, originally known as the Mata Nui Adventure Game, and often informally abbreviated to MNOLG or MNOG for short, was the first BIONICLE online web game that appeared on BIONICLE.com in January 2001. Created by Templar Studios, the game was one of the main factors that caused BIONICLE to become a success. It was updated every month or so throughout 2001, until it received its last update in December. In 2002, it received a small update allowing players to reset their game, and in 2003, a sequel, Mata Nui Online Game II: The Final Chronicle was launched. The game remained online until early 2004, when it was taken down to make way for new content. However, due to popular demand, it was re-released on BIONICLE.com as an exclusive download in March 2006. It was again removed in February 2009 to make way for new content. It was rereleased by Templar Studios in 2013.

Controls

  • Mouse - Navigate through the world and menus.
  • To access different scenes, the player should move the pointer all of the way to the left or right until it turns into a stone circle with a red swirling arrow on it and then click.
  • To use an object or present it to another character, the player has to click on the backpack icon in the upper-right corner, then click and drag the object out of the backpack and toward an object or character to use it.

Chapters

An old BIONICLE.com thumbnail of the game

The game unfolded in "episodes" that were revealed over the course of the following year at semi-regular intervals. This was accomplished through obstacles that kept the player from reaching locked areas: having lava too hot to cross, closing the marina, a snow-storm in Ko-Koro, etc. The Great Telescope was used to foreshadow when new content would become available. The date shown at the bottom of specific panels at the base of the device were to be read and compared with a date on the telescope itself. When the two dates matched, the stars seen through the telescope would resemble those on the matching panel.

January

Players can only explore the beach outside of Ta-Koro. Tahu's Toa Canister lies on the beach, and a large stone totem can also be found here. On top of a cliff is a rock formation, where the player can view the legend of Mata Nui, and a telescope where players can look at the Wall of Stars. The path to Ta-Koro is blocked by a lava river.

February

The lava river clears, and players can cross over to Ta-Koro. Here they can explore the Charred Forest, where they can meet Kapura; visit the gatehouse, where players meet Jaller; and the village itself, where players can meet up with Vakama. There is also a path leading to Ko-Wahi, but the Ta-Matoran guard will not let the player pass without a guard insignia.

March

Ga-Koro after the rescue of the villagers

Macku appears on the beach. The player can use her boat to visit Ga-Koro, which is strangely deserted. However, by diving underwater and collecting a gear, and then placing it into a machine, a sunken hut rises. Inside are the Ga-Matoran and Nokama. Gali will fight the Tarakava that trapped the villagers, and then leave. In Ga-Koro, the player can talk to Nokama, Macku, and Nixie.

April

The player can now travel to Po-Wahi. Here, an epidemic has occurred involving infected Kolhii Balls. A bit of scouting around reveals that the seller of the balls, Ahkmou, got them from a quarry. Traveling to the quarry initiates a fight between Pohatu and a Nui-Jaga. Upon winning the fight, Pohatu and Takua flee from the quarry, and Pohatu resolves to help the Po-Matoran throw the Kolhii Balls into the sea. After the infected Kolhii Balls are disposed of, Ahkmou seems to have disappeared.

May

The opened entrance in the Great Mine

The player can now travel to Onu-Koro. Here, a Mining accident has caused a shortage in Lightstones. Going to the mine reveals that a huge lava flow has flowed over the path. The player can solve this by using a Lava Board and solving a small puzzle. The players also find out that there is an unbreakable rock layer at the bottom of Mine Shaft B. There lies a disk planted into the ground. The player can travel to Ga-Koro to get from Nixie a piece that fits in to it, revealing it to be a sundial, that opens the disk to reveal a small staircase to a room with a Golden Mask, but nothing to do there.

June

Taipu and the other Onu-Koro diggers finish the tunnel to Le-Wahi. The player can now travel to Le-Koro, where Turaga Matau and many other Le-Matoran were kidnapped and brought to a Nui-Rama hive. The player joins Kongu and helps rescue the Matoran.

July

Nuju and Matoro in the Sanctum

If the player goes back to Ta-Koro, Jaller will tell him about the guards missing in Ko-Wahi, and ask the player to join the guard. If the player does, they can access the Ta-Wahi-Ko-Wahi Cablecar. The player can now travel to Ko-Koro. There the player meets and saves Kopeke, and goes to Ko-Koro. There the player may want to talk to Turaga Nuju, but can not because Nuju does not speak Matoran but bird Rahi dialect. The player can climb Mount Ihu to find Matoro, during which the player meets Kopaka. Back in the Sanctum, Nuju then asks the player to deliver a message to all the Turaga.

August

The Turaga gather volunteers to aid the Toa to Kini-Nui. The player then goes around getting the volunteers and then reaches the waterfall at Ga-Wahi. Then, the Matoran volunteers use their skills to get to Kini-Nui, where the player meets the Toa and agree to defend Kini-Nui while the Toa do their quest to defeat Makuta.

September

The Chronicler's Company while facing Rahi

The Matoran begin defending the Kini-Nui from the Rahi, that begin coming in a larger number. The Matoran are then saved by the arrival of aid from the villages. Meanwhile, in Teridax's lair, the Toa Mata merge into the Toa Kaita, who defeat the Manas. Between the commotion Takua sneaks into the chamber, witnessing the battle. Finally, the Toa are suddenly separated. Then they defeat Teridax using their Elemental Powers. They eventually return to the surface. Takua is left in the chamber, just when Teridax sends a signal to awake the Bohrok. He escapes and finds Turaga Vakama, who leads him again to Ta-Koro.

Mini-Games

There are several smaller activities scattered throughout the main game. Completing these is necessary to advance the game.

Ga-Koro Gate

Ga-Koro's gate

On Ta-Wahi Beach, Takua encounters a frantic Macku, claiming that her village has been attacked by Rahi. He agrees to help, and is granted the use of the Ga-Matoran's boat. Takua uses the craft to sail across the sea, landing on the shores of Naho Bay, near Ga-Koro. He approaches the village's entrance, but discovers a portcullis barring his entry.

The gate employs a weight-based mechanism to seal off entry of the village. On the left is a large Mata Nui stone hanging, mirrored on the right by a shell, acting as a basket. Above the sealed archway is a circular stone bordered by a ring, both of these having a small, blue marker embedded in them. While the ring is static, the middle disk's rotational position is controlled by the balance of the left weight to the right. The stones scattered around the gate are to be placed into the shell, raising the left side, lowering the right, and causing the middle stone to rotate. When the two blue markers are aligned by the weights being equal, the gate opens.

With the gate raised, Takua is able to enter the floating village, to discover it in ruins.

Nui-Jaga Nest

Toa Mata Pohatu within the Nui-Jaga nest

Upon Takua's discovery of Ahkmou's selling of Comets tainted by Teridax, he alerts Turaga Onewa who sends for Toa Mata Pohatu. The two travel to the Po-Wahi Quarry where they discover a Nui Jaga nest filled with the infected Kolhii balls. The resident Nui-Jaga blinds the Toa who turns to Takua for guidance.

Pressing and holding the mouse button charges Pohatu's kick, then releasing it propels a Kolhii Ball forward. The purple Nui-Jaga inhabiting the nest will attempt to deflect Pohatu's shots, successfully nullifying their usefulness. Should Kolhii balls destroy all of the nest's back pillars, the cave will then collapse.

With Teridax's plan foiled, the Nui-Jaga retreats further into the collapsing nest and the duo of Matoran and Toa escape, Pohatu utilizing his Kanohi Kakama.

Lava Pump

The Cavern of Light, reopened after Takua completes the puzzle

After utilizing his Lava Board to travel through a magma-covered tunnel, Takua is presented with a control system for the lava. It consisted of nine buttons, all of them needing to be pressed at the same time.

Pressing a button reverses the state of that button and all of the buttons adjacent to it, as marked by the lines (but not including the diagonals). For example, the corner buttons reverse the corner and the two adjacent sides. The side buttons reverse the side, the two adjacent corners, and the center button. The center button reverses itself and the four side buttons.

After Takua's completion of the puzzle, the pipes causing lava to flood the area are closed and the corridor becomes navigable by foot again.

Flute Playing

When Takua enters the seemingly abandoned Le-Koro, he finds a Flute fitted with a Flutesong.

Clicking the cyan-colored tab causes a sequence of the green keys to light up. The pattern is to be followed to produce a song.

After the song is successfully produced, the Le-Matoran hiding throughout Le-Koro come out of hiding and greet Takua.

Nui-Rama Battle

Aerial battle against the Nui-Rama

While Takua is in Le-Koro, Nui-Rama attack the village and as the other members of the Gukko Force prepared for aerial battle, Kongu asks Takua to be his second. He agrees and flies alongside Kongu to the Nui-Rama Hive.

During the journey, disks have to be thrown at assailing Nui-Rama by clicking in the correct direction.

After successfully fending off the Rahi, the Kahu bird reaches the hive and flies in.

Ko-Koro Gate

On Takua's journey to Ko-Koro, he comes to a room with a sealed door shortly after rescuing Kopeke.

The blocks that are found in the chamber have depictions of the six Toa Mata's Kanohi as well as the Turaga's. These cubes need to be properly arranged on the grid-like walls of the room. Across the upper-most row, the Great masks should be placed, below them, the Noble masks, which sit above pre-set blocks bearing the symbol of each of the six Koro. The Kanohi blocks need to be aligned so that they occupy the same columns as their respective Koro.

After Takua correctly arranges the blocks, the door opens, allowing him passage to the village.

Kini-Nui Defense

The Chronicler's Company battling Rahi

When with the Chronicler's Company reaches the Kini-Nui, they are assigned by the Toa to defend the temple against the Rahi which will attack. Battle shortly after ensues in regular bouts.

During the battle, clicking on a Matoran and then clicking on a Rahi causes the Matoran to fire his/her disk at the Rahi soon after, injuring the Rahi and eventually causing it to retreat when too injured, dropping its mask. Simultaneously, Rahi also attack the Matoran who dodge the attacks sporadically and take hits otherwise and are forced to retreat when they lose all their health. This is uninfluenced by the player, however.

Following each successful battle, Takua has a short vision of the Battle of Mangaia.

At the end of a few battles, a great number of Rahi besiege the temple, causing defeat to appear to be imminent, when Matoran from the different villages appear and rescue the Company.

Continuity

Although the game was not approved by the BIONICLE story team, it is still considered by the fanbase to be a part of the BIONICLE canon. Initially, Greg Farshtey said that certain elements of the game, such as Pewku being a "taxi crab," were not canon, although it has gradually been accepted back into the continuity. Another point of interest is that Matoro appears to use the power of his Kanohi Akaku, although it has since been stated that his mask had a built-in "zoom" feature, which was unrelated to the mask power, later seen when Nuju, as a Matoran and a Toa Metru, has a special telescopic eyepiece. Additionally, certain events in the game (such as Gali's mental link with Takua) have been referenced in canon material.

Contest

The floating mask

The floating gold Kanohi Hau beneath the Great Sundial was part of a BIONICLE contest run in 2001. The word shown above it is "RAHI." Contestants were to find words, written in the Matoran script, online or in print, under gold masks such as this one, decode them, write down the words on an official entry form, and then mail the form in for a chance at a 14-karat solid gold Kanohi Hau.

Re-Release

The game was made available for download from BIONICLE.com in March 2006. The game then featured a more user-friendly interface; the player could not save their game, but they could choose to continue playing from a certain "chapter" of the game. There were nine chapters, and the Book of Chronicles could also be viewed from this new title screen. There was a small help window that discussed the most basic features of the game, and the game could also be played in German. The game itself was mostly unchanged, except that the word "Tohunga" was replaced with "Matoran." However, characters like Jaller and Macku were still referred to by their original names (Jala and Maku respectively), "Tohunga" was still used during the Battle for Kini-Nui, and the word "Koronan" was still used instead of "Matoran." Also, instead of gathering a backpack and Lightstone in gameplay, Takua automatically has them when the game begins.

In addition, the LEGO Group released a brand-new walkthrough that serves as a step-by-step guide through the game. It caused much excitement among the fanbase, since it is written in the form of a story that is supposedly written by Takua himself.

The game was removed from BIONICLE.com once again in 2009, but the rereleased version was made available online in 2013 by its creators, Templar Studios.

Walkthrough

See Mata Nui Online Game Walkthrough

Items

See Items in the Mata Nui Online Game

Trivia

  • The music played when the Le-Matoran were preparing to attack the Nui-Rama Hive is "Ride of the Valkyries," by Richard Wagner.
  • At various points in the game, Matoran script can be read in the background (a few of them are eerie sentences relating to the Bohrok storyline of the following year):
    • A carved stone at the Po-Matoran trader's stall reads: "My friend went to Po-Wahi and all I got was this lousy rock."
    • There is a rock in Le-Wahi, off to the right as one travels from Le-Koro to the tunnel entrance, with Matoran writing upon it that reads: "Wake one and you wake them all."
    • There is a rock carving in the Wastes inscribed with the text: "Beware the Swarm." Snow has to be brushed off if one wants to read it.
    • The walls of the Sanctum include packaging information from a LEGO set and a quote from Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series: "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?" The translation of the packaging information is "Made by Lego; Produced by CH 6340 Baar Switzerland; Distributed by the Lego Group; DY; 7190 Ailluni Denmark; (c)2001 Lego Group."
  • The entrance to the Cavern of Light has a sign on the top reading "Cavern of Light." However, while all other entrance signs are written in Matoran, this one is written in English (or German, if the player is playing that mode).
  • A glitch that happens occasionally is that the Great Mine elevator's lever will be in the wrong position.
  • Even if Takua does not talk to Onewa after defeating the Nui-Jaga (and thus did not receive the Po-Koro Chisel), he still uses it to escape the Bohrok at the end of the game.
  • Starting with The Legend Animation, the animation style of the mini movies made for BIONICLE's 2015 reboot were inspired by the Mata Nui Online Game.

See also

External links