Energy Element
Energy Elements are collectible items in the Make a Good Mega Man Level series. They act as the end-of-level collectible in all MaGMML games to date, and frequently serve as MacGuffins in a given game's plot, with characters desiring large amounts of them for one reason or another. Collecting an Energy Element refills the player character's health and all weapon energy, and immediately teleports them out of the level. While most Energy Elements can be found sitting at the end of levels, they can also be dropped from defeated bosses.
Uses
Under normal circumstances, Energy Elements can be used to power highly advanced machines, such as Gamma or Wily Machine TROPHY, or even be used for simulations, which can accommodate at least up to three of them. However, Energy Elements are highly impressionable by extraplanar energies, absorbing them and growing dramatically in power. Under these circumstances, the owners of large quantities of Energy Elements can utilize them to manipulate the fabric of time and space, or create entirely new objects from their energy. In the events of Make a Good Mega Man Level: Episode Zero, it is revealed that several Energy Elements had absorbed energies from the Super Genesis Wave that occurred at the end of the Worlds Collide arc of the Archie comics and become volatile. These volatile Energy Elements were the reason for the opening of the Wargates seen previously in Scooby Doc 4 and again in Episode Zero itself.
Conceptual history
Energy Elements were first mentioned in the manual for Mega Man 3, as extraterrestrial energy sources gathered to power Gamma. However, they never made a physical appearance in the game itself, nor was there any official Capcom artwork depicting what they looked like. As such, adaptations gave them wildly different designs, with Mega Man Megamix depicting them as crystals, and the Mega Man Archie comic drawing them as mechanical disc-like objects.
In the MaGMML series, they use the appearance of the unnamed level ending orb from the original Mega Man, implied by said game's manual to be a Robot Master's "central core". To SnoruntPyro, the object was a natural choice for a level exit item, and she called them "Energy Elements" after the fact, as while developing the original Make a Good Mega Man Level she was unaware that the Archie comics had their own design for them. Despite this, the reused sprite has stuck for the remainder of the series, with MaGMML: Episode Zero's intro and chapter title art reinterpreting it as a gold crystal orb encased in a metal cross-shaped harness.
Trivia
- Energy Elements are also used as one of the non-boss end-of-level markers in Mega Man Maker, which was first released a year after the original MaGMML.
- In the original MaGMML's devkit, collecting an Energy Element would have Mega Man automatically walk right for a few moments before teleporting away, similar to how Mario continues walking after crossing a finish line in Super Mario World. The final game instead has Mega Man stand still for a moment before teleporting, as in most official Mega Man games. While this change did not impact the majority of levels, it did leave a small part of Maze of Death designed around the quirk unseen. Make a Good Mega Man Level Remastered would later replicate the original devkit behavior specifically for this level.
- The entries Level, Mix & Match and Cutting Edge Technology forgot to put Energy Elements at the end. They were put in post-judging.
- This makes Make a Good 24 Hour Mega Man Level the only contest that did not contain a submission originally lacking an Energy Element.
- Previously in Make a Good Mega Man Level 2, Zero postulated that Energy Elements were themselves sapient, and thus able to react to the whims of their owner. This idea has since been stated to be false.
