Metroid Suits Tier List

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home January 18, 2025 14 Views 11 Min Read
Metroid Suits Tier List



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The Metroid franchise has enjoyed a large resurgence in recent years, mostly due to its growing presence on the Nintendo Switch. Between a variety of classic 2D Metroid titles releasing on Nintendo Switch Online, the announcement of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond and subsequent launch of Metroid Prime Remastered, and the debut of Metroid Dread, the classic exploration-action series is more active than it’s been in a decade. Even though fans have spent the better part of the Switch’s lifetime waiting for Metroid Prime 4, optimism for it and Metroid’s future is still high.

Metroid has provided plenty of reasons why its community has stayed so loyal, from its impressive interconnected level design to its snappy gameplay. Art, music, and even storytelling have all won over players throughout the franchise’s existence, and many of these strengths revolve around Metroid‘s protagonist, Samus Aran. This spacefaring bounty hunter has quietly carried most of the series on her shoulders, which are fortunately reinforced by her assorted suits of power armor. Samus has gone through many battle outfits across the Metroid series, and most have some special quality that makes them memorable.

Things you should know about Samus' Zero Suit

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Metroid: 8 Things You Should Know About Samus’ Zero Suit

Samus’ Zero Suit has become an iconic part of the Metroid character’s design, but there are a few facts that fans might not know about it.

S Tier

Varia Suit

When a Metroid fan thinks of Samus Aran’s most iconic outfit, chances are they aren’t thinking of her original Power Suit. Instead, the deeper orange and bulkier shoulders of the Varia Suit have become synonymous with one of Nintendo’s leading ladies, to the point of it being Samus’ appearance on several games’ cover art and the armor she occasionally starts with. Its heat protection is an important upgrade, and it appears in almost every canon Metroid game, but it’s the Varia Suit’s distinct silhouette that’s kept it in the limelight.

Metroid Suit

The Varia Suit may be an expected upgrade, but unexpected upgrades can be just as impactful. As of Metroid Dread‘s ending, the Metroid Suit is the latest armor variant to be introduced, and it makes a strong impression in spite of its screen time. Representing the full synthesis of Metroid DNA into Samus’ body after its emergency injection in Metroid Fusion, this form may represent the height of her power, encouraging an invincible rampage with a built-in Hyper Beam through the collapsing planet ZDR. Nothing short of the easily-defeated Raven Beak X can survive touching the Metroid Suit, but its unrestrained energy suction is why she can’t keep it, at least for now.

A Tier

Power Suit

Setting aside raw strength, Metroid has plenty of other iconic and lore-essential suits, starting with the baseline Power Suit. While it, again, doesn’t cut the same figure as its Varia counterpart, it does serve as the basis for Samus Aran’s default silhouette and color scheme. This is the Chozo-built power armor that Samus left her destroyed adoptive home with, and it has served as a firm foundation for many items and upgrades scattered throughout Metroid‘s universe. Other suits wouldn’t be what they are without the Power Suit, and that commands respect.

Fusion Suit

As a parallel to the Power Suit, the Fusion Suit represents new beginnings both within Metroid’s advancing chronology and in the state of the Metroid franchise itself. The Metroid Fusion and Dread variants of this suit sport drastic departures from Samus Aran’s standard Power Suit design and coloration, but they do so to their benefit. Its emergency creation in Metroid Fusion prioritized saving Samus’ life over matching the Power Suit’s durability, but that improved over time. Both represent the synthesis of Samus Aran with her usual Metroid foes, and both have ingrained themselves in fans’ minds as redesigns worth remembering, even if they can’t match the classics.

Zero Suit

Speaking of classics, the Zero Suit is another series icon. It’s elevated above the various casual clothes found in Metroid’s unlockable endings thanks to its presence in the Super Smash Bros. series since Brawl, various cinematics, and the new section of Metroid: Zero Mission that partially gave the remake its name. While the Zero Suit lacks the offense and defense that even certain games’ secret Justin Bailey outfits offer, it has its own bag of tricks, and sports a simple yet memorable design to boot. Most likely, Zero Suit Samus will get more moments to shine in the future.

B Tier

Gravity Suit

There’s one more iconic Metroid outfit to cover, but it doesn’t quite scale to the others. The Gravity Suit is traditionally the last tier of armor upgrades Samus gets, excluding any plot-relevant endgame suits. Its consistent purple appearance is recognizable, especially in various endings, but the Gravity Suit simply doesn’t get the same exposure as other iconic Metroid outfits. That’s rather unfortunate, especially considering that this upgrade unlocks a lot by making water, acid, and lava traversal feasible, but there is a reason why Samus always loses her upgrades, visual ones included.

Light Suit

Comparatively, relevance to a single storyline is the main reason why Metroid Prime 2: Echoes’ Light Suit gets a single appearance. This outfit stands beside the Fusion Suit as the most non-conforming armor that’s available in regular gameplay, stepping away from its Dark Suit predecessor’s Varia similarities to do its own thing. Regardless, it makes navigating the Dark Aether otherworld easier by removing its poison effect, and it’s hard to understate how much easier that makes Metroid Prime 2 for some players. It was never meant to be a keeper, but the Light Suit is nice to have around.

Fully Powered Suit

Next is the Fully Powered Suit, also known as the Legendary Power Suit, which is one of the stranger outfits Samus has acquired. It’s identical to the Varia Suit, and technically is the first one Samus finds, but was an ancient Chozo artifact granted to Samus in Metroid: Zero Mission after she loses her original suit. That means every instance of the Power Suit in Metroid canon after Zero Mission is actually this suit, including instances where a Varia Suit reverts to a Power Suit, Metroid Fusion’s reconstructed Fusion Suit, and the same game’s SA-X doppelgangers. It’s quite a legacy for such an understated piece of Metroid lore.

C Tier

The remaining suits aren’t bad, as Metroid has done an admirable job of upholding its strong art design, but they’re all missing something crucial to help them stand out. Unfortunately, each game in the Metroid Prime trilogy has one such suit.

  • Phazon Suit
  • Dark Suit
  • PED Suit (and Hazard Shield)

Prime 1’s Phazon Suit and Prime 2’s Dark Suit are both visually pleasing Varia redesigns, but end up being stepping stones for better things. The trilogy’s main villain Dark Samus wears the Phazon Suit better, and for far longer, than Samus does, and the Dark Suit is rendered obsolete by the Light Suit. Prime 3’s PED Suit, standing for Phazon Enhancement Device, fares better as a game-wide power-up, but it and its Gravity-adjacent Hazard Shield are both ditched in the end. Samus’ usual Power Suit design was also slightly muddled by the PED Suit, but that’s still better than one alternative.

Omega Suit

While it sounds impressive, the “Omega Suit” is actually just the fan nickname for the fully-upgraded Fusion Suit, likely referencing the Omega Metroid she fights in it. Samus absorbs an SA-X and its traditional Metroid-busting Ice Beam in the final minutes of Metroid Fusion, so any catharsis of seeing Samus Aran regain her pre-Fusion kit and iconic orange-on-yellow color scheme is cut short. The Omega Suit regenerates into a mostly-mechanical Varia Suit by Metroid Dread anyway, so it seems even the Metroid series would rather forget that this odd half-step exists.

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