This is a rant about MNOG II and contain spoilers for the game
Oh Mata Nui Online Game II, what went wrong with you? Your older brother is so great and a must play for any BIONICLE fan, but you… have the potential to be decent.
I remember when the game originally came out. It was so full of glitches that the game crashed before I could even play any kohlii game. So I leave him, and I played more BIONICLE games as they came out. Many years passed and I never tried to replay that game full of bugs. But one day I decided the check the game and for my pleasant (in that moment) surprise, the community had fixed the bugs. What a chance to play another classic game! Oh, how naive I was. I want to clarify that I didn’t know much about the game, haven’t seen any walkthrough nor read opinions about it, I only knew that it has kolhii and heard rumors about a bad ending.
But before I spill my anger.
THE GOOD
A praise must be given were a praise is deserved
Ga-Koro
You finally looks like a proper village. It’s clear that a lot of work was put in redesigning the village from it previous incarnation. It have bridges, commerce, different huts interior, a temple. The village is full of life, Ga-Matoran go everywhere, each with an specific purpose. You can work and earn widgets (money). You feel like a common Matoran in a Matoran society.
The visuals
So long are the days of weird Pakaris. The game delights us with a gallery of Matoran, with clear colors and masks, and the return of old friends:
You will also find beautiful landscapes and really cool light changes.
I can’t be the only one that think in Cerebro when seen this last image.
Kolhii
A really good concept with a complex mechanic. You can improve your kolhii skills in each village (although some village/skill combination are quite weird) to improve your gameplay and level up:
- Speed in Ga-Koro to increase your movement speed
- Stamina in Onu-Koro to not get tired
- Willpower in Ko-koro to not get stunned (this is kinda useless)
- Accuracy in Le-Koro to shot where you aim
- Strategy in Po-Koro to steal the ball
- Strength in Ta-Koro to shoot faster
With enough levels, is really fun and challenging game, and you fight with each village.
THE BAD
Now for what I came.
The grinding
This game requires so much grinding. It have days of gameplay, with only a few minutes of original material.
Remember the widgets that I mentioned? well to earn them you require to work, a lot, just to earn a few. And all the work is a repetitive task. Recollect this, ask someone to craft that, recollect more, craft more, sell and repeat. You can spend hours working just to earn a few widgets, which are require throughout the game, so you can’t escape them. The only way earn easy money is trading kolhii balls which will duplicate your profit for each trade, making all the other jobs pointless. And this ball thing is more an exploit than a planed game mechanic.
Remember the improving skills? You have to play the minigames, a lot, to increase your levels. Each minigame increase one of your stats in 1, and each stat have a maximum of 100 or 150 (no really).
Some minigames like Le-Koro and Ta-Koro are fun enough to reach level 50 without losing your mind. Ko-Koro is quite hard, so leveling up is not an easy task. The others quickly become boring, but Onu-Koro is the worse. After doing it once, I didn’t want to do it again.
I understand that many of the flaws of the game could be due time and budget constrains, but I don’t understand how none realize that the amount earn was too low for the amount of work. Just earning 10 xp instead of 1 xp after each minigame will make a ton of difference in this game, becoming playable.
Kolhii
Kolhii could be a fun game, if you have the enough stats. If not the other teams will rekt you, and your only hope to success is hope for an own goal and lock the ball with Macku, or hit the Win Kohlii Match button.
You need at least a level 20 in each skill (willpower zero is fine) to have a chance of winning legally. But if you follow the original history path, you will increase just one skill before every match, so only in the end you will have all your skills with more than 0 points.
This transform Kolhii in a very frustrating game. I ended up hating each player, specially Macku, Hewkii and Hahli. And I loved all this characters before playing this game. The only ones who were saved were Takua and Jaller (since at that point I had all my skills over 0, so the match was more even).
History and characters (or lack of)
The end is bad, but it really wasn’t any history to follow. We went from and epic quest to meet each Toa and save the island to a sport tournament. The Toa didn’t even appear in this game. There isn’t any cool cutscenes to show how the history progress. You play some games, find some crystals, and for some reason transform in the new chronicler, the end. And the game is really hard to complete without a guide, since there are really few indications of what to do.
Hahli is just a plain protagonist. In all the cutscenes she barely moves or express any emotion. And none of the other characters were saved. There are no funny gags or anything to remember them. Most of the Matoran are nothing more than the job that they said they have.
MNOG have many characters like these, but most of them show something. Ta-Koro’s guards marched, Ko-Koro’s guards were covered in snow and Le-Koro musicians played the instruments. This are the Le-Koro musicians in MNOG II:
With exception of Ga-Koro and maybe Onu-Koro, all the other villages are lifeless. All their huts are empty. And be prepare to walk, a lot, to move through the island.
THE UGLY
WOULD I RECOMEND PLAYING THE GAME?
No. As it is, the game is tedious and frustrating.
But there is a way to make playable the game. Sadly I discovered this after finishing it. When you open the game there is a Progress button. In there is a text with all the information about your game, your inventory, widgets, skills level and more. The skills level are at the end, and there you can put any number that you want.
So after getting bored of a minigame, just change your level and update the game. With this you could easily rekt all the teams or find a good balance to have a good match.
I don’t know the limits, but I get a power level over 9000.
At that point you will be a god amongst mortals
But this code isn’t limited only to kolhii or money, you can destroy Ta-Koro without even leaving Ga-Koro and see the debris from the other side:
Or leave Amaya trapped and alone
I’m curious what other funny scenarios you could create
Sorry for all the text but I needed to vent
Tl;dr: MNOG II bad game. Cheats make it playable and funny.
. All this goals where made by me: