MegaMaster Musings

Energy Balancing
September 27, 2006

Not too long ago I stumbled by accident across a theory about Proto Man’s defect as mentioned in the Power Fighters. The theory said this: that the imbalance in Proto Man’s system talked about during the ending of that game was a result of Proto Man giving Mega Man the Energy Balancer in Mega Man 6. It was an interesting idea, one that I hadn’t considered before. But after thinking about it for a few minutes, I realized that, no matter how clever, the premise was unfortunately flawed in several unrecoverable ways.

First, the Energy Balancer (or EB machine) regulates weapon energy, not life energy. The energy defect mentioned in the Power Fighters clearly involves the energy that Proto Man runs on, not the energy he uses to fire Master Weapons. (Master Weapons all have their separate meters anyway, and if you run out of weapon energy during a game, it doesn’t in any way harm your character.)

Second, it is obviously possible to function just fine without an Energy Balancer, because Mega Man did for years until Mega Man 6 came around. He also tends to start every game without an EB, requiring the player to build it at some point during the game (or not, if he so chooses). It isn’t until the X series (or a few games like Mega Man: Powered Up) where you begin the game with the EB by default. All in all, the EB item is merely a convenience, not a critical piece of hardware.

Third, Dr. Light can easily make Energy Balancers now. Just gather enough P-Chips or Bolts and poof, instant EB. If Proto Man’s missing EB was really that much of a problem, why wouldn’t Dr. Light just make him a new one and hand it to him? He wouldn’t even have to install it himself. Clearly, if Proto Man could take it out of his own body, he could also put one back in himself as well.

Finally—if you want to use it as a reference—Mega Man: Powered Up indicates that Proto Man’s defect existed at least as far back as Mega Man 1...and definitely far earlier than the time of Mega Man 6.

Still, it was a cute premise on the surface. Probably people are confused by the words and as soon as they hear about an “energy imbalance,” they assume that something called an “Energy Balancer” naturally fixes things up. It is a logical assumption, but despite the confusingly-similar terms, the EB really has nothing to do with whatever defect exists in Proto Man’s system.

- The MegaMaster