Interestingly, you get the fire armor in Stage 3 which changes your armor to red. However, during scene transitions, Jason always appears in the starting armor. However, after Stage 3, every time you fight a boss the big Jason sprites use a new palette that fits the stage colors. So the fire armor cosmetics are only seen on the big sprites from when you beat the third stage's second boss and collect the armor to when you exit that arena, and never again. The small sprite retains the red color only while the player controls the smaller sprites in a platforming segment of a stage, but never matches the big sprite colors after stage 3.