10 Video Game Mistakes Left In To Troll You

3. The Varia Suit - Metroid

Lara breast mistake
Nintendo

Amongst Metroid's otherwise prosaically named upgrades such as the Long Beam and High Jump Boots, the Varia Suit stands out as particularly cool, particularly otherworldly. The jargon is a perfect fit for Samus Aran's trademark orange (technically pink in the first game) outfit, hinting at an ancient language spoken by the game's archetypally expired and technologically-superior race, the Chozo.

That's some lovely head (arm?) canon, but it's bogus: 'Varia' is simply a phonetic mis-romanisation of 'barrier', as confirmed by the English language manual. Nevertheless, it sounded sufficiently neat, and the name caught on, such that it became official in the Game Boy sequel Metroid II: Return of Samus - albeit with the retconned explanation that an arcane item or substance known as 'Varia' enabled the suit's barrier.

Come the peerless Super Metroid, Nintendo had given up trying to pull the wool: Samus' iconic get-up was now simply the Varia Suit, and that was that. Barrier? Nope, we never said that.

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Editorial Team
Editorial Team

Benjamin was born in 1987, and is still not dead. He variously enjoys classical music, old-school adventure games (they're not dead), and walks on the beach (albeit short - asthma, you know). He's currently trying to compile a comprehensive history of video game music, yet denies accusations that he purposefully targets niche audiences. He's often wrong about these things.