Iron

Iron is a Venus Djinni found in Golden Sun: The Lost Age.

Iron is the second Venus Djinni in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. The separate Djinn list viewable with the Select button from the status screen lists Iron and all other Venus Djinn introduced in The Lost Age before the seven Venus Djinn  from the original Golden Sun, most likely because all the Djinn from  the original game can be gotten all at once late in The Lost Age. However, the original Djinn are ordered before all of the Djinn introduced in The Lost Age in the Djinn inventory screen while they are allocated to characters. By this order, Iron is the ninth Venus Djinni in the GBA series, rather than the second.

Basic description

 * "Bolster the party's defense."

When Set, Iron increases its Adept's base HP by 11, base Defense by 2, and base Agility by 3.

When Iron is unleashed in battle, all currently active  and alive Adepts get buffed with a 25% temporary increase to  their  respective defense ratings. This is twice as strong as Protect/Protector. All defense-boosting effects come in the form  of 12.5% "stages", so therefore Corona boosts  each Adept's defense rating  by two stages, and the maximum amount of  stages an Adept's defense can be  boosted to is four, at +50%.

In The Lost Age, Iron's unleash animation visually resembles the user summoning a glowing, transparent image of a Venus Djinni that briefly hovers above the party, as each Adept affected by the effect has a swirling array of whitish energy orbs gather into them, and a shield image briefly flashes at each Adept's position to indicate a defense boost.

Location
Golden Sun: The Lost Age: Iron is the first Djinni players can come across in The Lost Age  that is randomly encountered in a specific area of the overworld that  otherwise appears to be featureless scenery. Compared to other Djinn found and fought like this, though, Iron is perhaps the only one that  players without any form of outside help or guidance have a pretty good  chance to stumble upon regardless; Iron is located in the green forest  bordering the left of the town of Madra, so if a random battle  occurs while you're crossing the forest on the way to Madra, you will  most likely engage in the battle with Iron. Then, of course, it must be battled to be acquired.

As an opponent (The Lost Age)
Statistically, Iron has 223 HP, 20 PP, 49 Attack, 12 Defense, 37 Agility, and 7 Luck. Like all other Venus Djinn that are fought, in terms of resistance, it has a Venus Resistance rating of 193, Mercury and Mars Resistance ratings of 100 each, and a Jupiter Resistance rating of 25, and in regards to its abilities it uses its available Venus-based attacks with a Venus power rating of 125.

Iron can use the following battle commands:
 * Growth: Used 111 out of 256 times, this is a Psynergy spell that causes a few thorny vines to erupt from the ground and through a single Adept, dealing a Venus-based attack with a power rating of 25. This ability consumes 4 of its user's PP.
 * Quake: Used 94 out of 256 times, this is a Psynergy spell that prompts three rectangular sections of ground underneath the party to jolt upward and retract into the ground quickly, bouncing each Adept once. It deals a Veus-based attack with a power rating of 12 and a range of 3. This ability consumes 4 of its user's PP.
 * Attack: Used 28 out of 256 times, this is this monster's standard physical attack, but for this monster it is counted as a Venus-based attack rather than a non-elemental attack.
 * Flee: Ued 23 out of 256 times, this enemy has the ability to attempt to Flee the battle, thereby ending the battle if successful without rewarding you with the associated EXP, Coins, and the Djinni itself. Since this is a randomly battled overworld Djinni, however, it can be very quickly fought again just by running around in the same area you first fought it in.

When defeated, Iron yields 73 EXP and 96 Coins, and the Iron Djinni is added to your party's Djinn collection. If you happen to have a Jupiter Djinni like Blitz from later on at Yampi Desert, and you fell Iron with a hit from Blitz, its rewards increase to 94 EXP and 124 Coins.

You have limited options, especially considering that you don't even have any attacking Djinn of the Jupiter element if you encounter it when you are first able to. Felix should stick to using his normal attack, Jenna with Fume, and Sheba with Ray, and do this until Iron is defeated.

Analysis
General: The mass-defense-boosting effect that Iron and other identical Djinn provide is a highly effective buffing effect in any of the games because many enemies' attacks are physically based and will be lowered a large amount, justifying the turn  an Adept takes to cast it. However, the additional defense works bests against enemies without many offensive Psynergy or monster skills that are based on elemental power rather than elemental physical  attacks.

By game
Golden Sun: The Lost Age: Iron can be a very valuable battle effect to players who incorporate buffing all party members' physical defense ratings in  their battling approaches. Until late in the game when Isaac's party joins, the Guard Psynergy series is not present on any of your four characters when they are in their respective mono-elemental class series, and require switching Djinn around to attain the class series that do have it. Because of this, Iron can be considered all the more valuable, providing the party a double-strength Protect option regardless of what classes the Adepts are in. Note that when Isaac's party joins, they can bring with them the Mars Djinni identical to Iron in effect, Corona. Technically, this Djinni only gets better as the game progresses and party members' defense ratings increase.

Name Origin
Iron is a type of transition metal, which is the most common metal in everyday use.