Phantasy Star Odds & Ends

Tell Me No Lies

In Phantasy Star 2 you will need a special item if you want to communicate with the locals on Dezo. It's a hat called the mogic cap and you can find it in Skure. If you don't wear it the Dezo people will speak an incomprehensible language and you won't be able to get any info out of them or make use of the various shops and services.

However, there is another hat that can be found in Skure called the magic cap. And this one is a bit different. You need this to communicate with the musk cats that can be found hanging around in Skure. However, these two magical (or on one case, mogical) caps are not interchangeable. And guess what happens if you don the wrong hat?

Rudeness!	Hostility!

If you wear the mogic cap the musk cats in Skure will become rather inhospitable, calling you names and threatening to bite you. This is actually understandable since they were pets abandoned by humans who fled back to Palm after the poison gas leak at the laconia mine. But since you are wearing the mogic cap in this case the musk cats are actually telling lies. Don't worry. They're nice kitties.

What's interesting here is that Myau from the first Phantasy Star game was also a musk cat. But he spoke human language. And the musk cats in Phantasy Star 4 do as well. So why do you need a special hat just to talk to them in Phantasy Star 2? After all, they were pets and thus should be able to speak with humans. It's not like they were wild animals who had little interaction with people. You could also argue that Myau was a special case and that he taught human speech to his descendants and followers in Phantasy Star 4. Perhaps his ability is genetic? Who knows. In the case of Phantasy Star 2 we might as well chalk it up to gameplay mechanics. Maybe someone thought it would be fun to add a variety of amusing yet useful hats. Of course with said hats you end up with less precious space for precious trimate. Gee, thanks. XP

So then, what about the magic cap? Let's say you go to one of the three Dezo towns and speak to the locals while wearing it? Well...

They swear it on a stack of Eclipse Torches!	And practice a healthy measure of nationalism!

Both of these are troubling. But in different ways. The magic cap makes Dezo people lie. When you go into shops they charge you more. And they say a variety of strange things. Including:

"The Truth is, the clone lab Grandma is really a man."

"There isn't anybody else but us on this planet."

"Staying too long on this planet makes everyone's body rot."

The last one could be a reference to Gauron Morgue from the first game. Although Guaron does appear in this game as well. But in this era it's zombie free. Although there are plenty of other monsters to contend with.

But the one that's really interesting is "We don't ever lie". Why? Well think about it. When Rolf is wearing the magic cap Dezo people will only tell lies right? This makes that quote a bit of a conundrum. Because if the Dezo people are lying, then telling you that they never lie would also be a lie. It's a bit hard to wrap your head around. But he's lying about being a liar. Which essentially makes him a liar by default. I actually never noticed this until now. As a child I just ignored it. But it's really weird. It would be one thing if he was being deceptive without the aid of a magic cap. Say if Rolf could understand Dezo language already. But that isn't the case here. Rolf is wearing a magical item that causes Dezo people to only tell lies. Or rather it's probably the cap's power making Rolf hear lies instead of whatever the locals are actually saying. So he's hearing a Dezo person say he never lies while wearing a cap that only makes him hear their language translated to him as lies. That is just really really weird isn't it?

You have to wonder how it works. Magic? Some kind of translation technology? You do find these caps in Skure after all. So they were probably left behind by the miners from Palm. They may have been engineered for use in dealing with the locals and conversing with their pets. And for whatever reason two caps had to be made because of differences in the magic or the mechanism.

Now concerning the second troubling quote; "We are Dezo people. The best men in Algo". Well since they only say this when the magic cap is equipped that makes it a lie. Which is rather unsettling. I guess it depends on how you might view this though. You could take it as no race in Algo being better than any other. But the Motavians don't seem to have it so good do they? And while the Espers aren't a race, they are a separate culture. And they've been heavily persecuted by the government in this game. Now the Dezo people's lie about being the best flew over my head as a child. But now that I see it I find it rather troubling to the state of affairs in this game. What with the Espers endangered and the Palm people leaving that huge hole on Dezo. So do the Dezo people have low self esteem? Is that the truth in the lie? Or maybe you really just hear the wrong thing because the magic cap isn't meant for anything other than conversing with animals. When the mogic cap is worn the Dezo people seem to be happy that the Palm people were gone. So maybe they were downtrodden a bit by all the environmental devastation and perhaps they weren't treated too well, or it was a cultural issue. The Dezo people do blame the poison gas incident on the Palm people not praying. And Dezo people are very religious.

Well, I guess that "caps" off this entry! Hahaha! Yeah, that's a bad joke. Raja style.