Bionicle Vakama (a.k.a. Mysteries of Metru Nui) Walkthrough

(Lego Multimedia, 2004)

By Alexander and Dakota Sioux Tait

March 14, 2004

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My son, Dakota is a huge Bionicle fan. He knows all their names and continually tells us which ones he “needs” (i.e. which ones he doesn’t have yet). Most of the time the CD-ROM’s that come with children’s toys are film clips or demo versions of games coming out. I’m always interested to look at these disks with my son when he gets them. This time he presented me with a mini-disc not purporting to have anything in particular on it. You can imagine my surprise when the game that started playing I recognized to be a puzzle/adventure game!

Now, don’t get too excited. This is not a high standard game by any means. However, the short game I played whetted my appetite for any others he might acquire with other Bionicle purchases. I gather this was one part of a six part series because each Toa comes from a certain area on the map:

The Toa (Bionicles characters to the uninitiated) must recover six disks that will allow them to defeat invading plants. This game chronicles the collection of one of the disks. The puzzles were easy and the overall story was pretty cliched. Dakota was entranced…

The game runs from the disk (i.e. no installation is required) but creates a directory (C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\LEGO Company) that contains an “.ini” file that records when a puzzle has been completed. This is how the game monitors what stage the player has reached. There are six very short levels (one puzzle for each level) of one mostly static screen. At the end of each level, through the use of the “.ini” file, the game is saved.

Graphics are typical QuickTime type, though perhaps reflecting the use of QuickTime 6.3, they were never grainy or pixellated. Ambient sound is adequate for setting the scene. Music is limited to the beginning and end of the game. Sadly, there is no speech other than that of the narrator. Character dialogs are displayed through the use of balloons similar to those in comic strips.

This is another great example of a children’s game that can serve as an introduction of adventure games to future generations of would-be players.

STORY

Toa Vakama, protector of Ta-Metur City, needs to find six disks which hold the power to defeat dangerous plants, Morbuzakh, that are overtaking the city of Metru Nui. The Metorans, who are the only ones who know where the disks are, have disappeared. In this game, Toa Vakama must find Nuhrii, the Metoran who knows where the great disk is located. He goes to Nuhrii’s home.

NUHRII’S HOME

Click on the red mask plaque that has been broken into pieces. Rearrange the pieces so it looks like this:

Here’s one solution (probably not the most efficient!). I’m not sure if the arrangement is different each time. Imagine the picture is a 3x3 grid. Number it like this:

Click on the grid in this order: 8, 9, 6, 5, 4, 7, 5, 2, 3, 6, 5, 2, 3, 6, 5, 4, 1, 2, 5, 8, 7, 4, 1, 2, 5, 8, 9, 6, 3, 2, 5, 6, 3, 2, 1,4 (first row complete)

Continue with the following: 5, 6, 9, 8, 7, 4, 5, 6, 9, 8, 7, 4, 5, 8, 7, 4, 5, 6, 9, 8, 7, 4, 5, 8, 9, 6, 5, 4, 7, 8, 9, 6, 5, 8 (second row complete)

Lastly: 9 (third row complete).

Toa Vakama wonders if anyone at the forge might know why Nuhrii would break the Kanohi masks.

FORGE
Toa Vakama meets a forge worker, Brander, a co-worker of Nuhrii’s. Because he doesn’t recognize him as the Vakama he knew, he challenges Vakama to the Kanohi mask test to prove himself. If he can prove himself, he will tell him what he knows.

Click on the masks behind Brander. You must select the perfect mask. The correct mask is the bottom middle one. You keep selecting until you get it right.

Brander tells you that Nuhrii thought the mask depicted on the plaque was flawed because he worked on it too quickly. He wanted to prove he was a better mask maker than Vakama. He sent the mask to the furnace to be melted down. He received a message that the mask was not flawed and set out to save it from being melted down in the furnace.

Vakama heads for the furnace.

FURNACE

Vakama finds the Morbuzakh are threatening the furnace. A cutscene shows Vakama surfing on the lava and then shooting the Morbuzakh with his disk. He ends up in the vat control room.

VAT CONTROL ROOM

Someone has sabotaged the control room with an energy blast, allowing the Morbuzakh to get to the vats! Vakama needs to repair them by completing another slider puzzle. In the bottom right part of the screen, there is an image of what they ought to look like. This is randomly generated so I haven’t provided a solution. Here’s what the correct configuration looks like:

When complete, Kapura, a furnace worker thanks Vakama and mentions that the mask has not been melted down yet. It sits in a protodermis pile waiting to be fed through the furnace. Nuhrii mentioned a Kanoka disk that would allow him to make a mask better than any made before.

PROTODERMIS PILE

Click on the masks in the pile. Vakama must match the mask to the image on the plaque. It matches the one furthest at right. Just keep selecting until you find it.

When he collects the correct mask, Kalama turns up and tells him that Nuhrii was here before you looking for the mask and it was, indeed, flawed. Whoever told him it wasn’t flawed did so for a reason. Nuhrii dropped a note as he left. It told him to go to the abandoned mask-maker’s house in the northern reaches to learn how to make his Kanoka disk into the most powerful mask ever made. Drops of purified liquid protodermis only found in Ga-Metru were on the note. Vakama decides to go to the abandoned mask-maker’s house.

MASK-MAKER’S HOUSE

Nuhrii, trapped in the house, is calling out for assistance. Remove the pieces of debris in this order:

Nuhrii tells Vakama of his jealousy of his skill as a mask maker. He reveals he does not know who left the message telling him to come to the mask-maker’s house but knows Akhmou in Po-Metru was the one who told him (falsely) that the mask was not flawed. The disk Vakama seeks is hidden deep in the fire pit. Together they have recovered the first of the six disks.

System Requirements:

Pentium 500 MHz

Windows 98, 98SE, ME, 2000 and XP

128 MB RAM

8x CD-ROM

Super VGA monitor (capable of 800x600 resolution)

DirectX compatible videocard

Soundcard

Apple QuickTime 6.3 (included on the disk)

The readme also lists Apple Macintosh OS 10.2 or higher suggesting the game can be played on the Mac as well.

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