In MegaMan 1, do I need to collect the balls left by dead enemies?

In Megaman 1, enemies often leave behind colored balls (or marbles) once they have been destroyed.

Here's a blue one in Fireman's stage:

Or a purple one from Cutman's stage:

I usually will go and collect these small marbles, out of habit I suppose (because anyone should always collect anything that falls from a defeated enemy, right?).

However, I have noticed that the points appear on top of the screen immediately after the enemies die, and not when you collect the marbles associated with them (in the last screenshot, the points on top did not change when I touched the marbles).

What does collecting these marbles do?

Solution 1:

Those Balls are known as Score Balls (or Bonus Balls). Collecting those balls actually do participate to the scoring, but it does not have a direct effect: the points will only be offered to you when you beat the current level. Do note that if you die during the level, all the current balls that you have collected are lost. According to this guide, each ball is worth 1000 points at the end of the level.

Bonus Balls - Each one of these is worth 1000 points at the end of a level.