This is Samus's Varia Suit and Morph Ball. The Varia Suit has appeared in Metroid 2: Return of Samas, Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion, Metroid Prime, Metroid: Zero Mission, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Metroid Prime: Pinball, Metroid Prime: Hunters, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Metroid: Other M. This suit reduces damage taken and protects Samus from extreme heat in areas with lava, the maximum temperature that the Varia Suit can protect against is unknown and in some games it features protection against acid. Samus is most commonly seen wearing this suit but many of the upgrade she had has been lost requiring her to check the upgrades down. When Samus acquires the Varia Suit it gives the Power Suit an extra red orange color and bulky shoulder pads. This is original design was actually pink on the shoulder pads, sides of the hips and the boots. E3 interview with the lead artist, Mike Sneath, he told E3 this,
"When I first modeled the Varia Suit it was under a really tight deadline and I finished its purpose to another artist Rodney Brunt what paint the text you're plus another artist, Ludovic Texier created the Arm Cannon of Samus. The deadline was so tight because the model had to be complete do it can be rigged and animated. At the time the goal was to make sure we could create this cool movie for E3 when Nintendo would announce that we were creating Metroid. So at that time we simply had to take the old Samus Varia Suit and just recreate it so we could get E3 a movie done. We had used that version of Samus for about a year and then I think about a year into the project was when Nintendo had asked Retro to explor a new updated design for Samus. When the new Varia Suit redesign ideas were being considered Gene Kohler (the other character artist on Metroid) wad already doing a great job on Samus's Arm Cannon and Gene already had reputation not only as great character desinger but he really kicked ass when it came o making metal armor look really cool with all the work he did on Retro's RPG title before it got canned." <--- Thanking my Pen Pall that works for Nintendo for getting me the interview details.


Samus Aran © Nintendo
Varia Suit © Nintendo
Art © me