Bionicle Heroes (2006)

I loved Bionicle Heroes. There are many different games based on Lego Bionicle but this one is the absolute best. The action, the graphics, the effects, the music, it is all very good and impressed me.

In Bioncle Heroes, you play as the mighty Toa Inika, all six of them. Your goal is to liberate the island of Voya Nui from the vile Piraka’s. You travel to six different worlds, each in the theme of the specific Piraka, earth, sand/rock, jungle, ice, fire and water and after three levels, you face the Piraka boss. After all the Piraka’s are defeated, you face Vezon and Fenrakk as the final boss. The story does not follow the official Bionicle lore, and as a result, all kinds of enemies, like the Vahki, Visorak and Bohrok are present in the game as enemies, although they do not inhibin this island originally.

On your journey, you collect Lego pieces, collectible gold and silver cannisters, and fight smaller enemies like Vahki, Bohrok and Visorak. Each world is split up in two mini boss stages, a very long “normal” stage and in the end, the Piraka battle. You start off in the hub world, in which you can choose a stage, go to the playground area, visit your collectibles or upgrade your Toa’s.

There are many secrets and areas where you cannot go to yet at the start of the game. You need to unlock/buy the right skill for your Toa’s. This means revisiting areas you have already cleared and backtracking.

When you defeat Piraka’s, they go to a special playground in which you can interact with them by buying toys and playground stuff. You point at a certain thing, like a sandbox, and one of the Piraka’s will go to that object and a little cut scene plays. I really loved to play about and discover all the cut scenes. Maybe the playground is an unnecessary feature, but I liked it.

I also really liked the boss battles in Bionicle Heroes. I was pleasantly surprised by the bosses, their patterns and the overall epic vibe that those battles had, despite the game being fairly simple and child friendly. This is mainly because of the heavy orchestra fight tracks I presume.

The graphics, at least for the PC version, are really nice and polished and the game runs very smoothly. The effects and animations of your attacks, the enemies and destruction of Lego items in the world is also really well done. The environments look very pretty and detailed, the best part of the visuals in my opinion.

This is one of those games which sets itself apart from the rest, because of its glorious soundtracks. I was overwhelmed how incredibly perfect the ambient and fight tracks are in Bionicle Heroes. Especially the boss tracks of the mini bosses and the Piraka. It is just epic and came out of the blue.

The game is not hard. You collect many Lego pieces, which you use to upgrade your Toa and make them more resistant to damage, increase their firepower and overall toughness. Dying is rare in this game. Also, when you collect enough Lego pieces, your Toa goes into “Hero mode” in which you are invincible to damage and turn gold. You also use Hero mode for construction of big, gold Lego constructs. When you achieve this, the Hero mode ends for that part of the stage. However, if you activate Hero mode and do not construct the golden object yet, you can just rush through the stage first until that point, never taking damage.

My only complaint with the game is how slow you move. Your Toa makes a move cycle like it is going a million miles per hour, but the screen is slowly moving. Sometimes, when I forgot something and needed to backtrack a bit, it felt like hours before reaching that point again.

Overall, I really liked Bionicle Heroes and would recommend it to everyone.