Does anyone understand the plot with Ilyssa in the first half of the game?
-She’s possessed at the Museum into… stealing books? That looks like what she is doing, but it’s never explained. None of the books are the Gozerian Codex anyway.
-Stay Puft tries to kill her… why? This has something to do with her being a Shandor, but why is Stay Puft after her? At this point the mayor/ghost of Shandor is not trying to sacrafice her to become a god himself.
It is only in the Museum level and afterwards that her story makes sense. She is captured by a ghost in order to be a blood sacrafice to turn Shandor into a Destructor. The Ghostbusters save her, and then when they go to the island she is kidnapped again and the same attempt is made.
Any astute players figured this out? It’s a great game with a good story, and while the overall plot makes sense (including with Ilyssa) I can’t figure out what’s going on with her at the start.
Also, why wasn’t the mandala used to power Gozer upon he/she/its arrival in GB1? Surely then he/she/it would have had a better chance against the Ghostbusters.
Yeah, I never thought about that. Although I must say, I’m wondering more about the Ghostbusters giving the Sedgewick a clean bill of health “5 years ago”, which would be near the end of 1986 if we’re going by exactly 5 years before the game. Suppose there are only two conclusions to that question. 1) The Ghostbusters going out of business took a while or 2) well, Ray never was good with numbers (Tunguska blast of 1909, Revelation 7:12).
For a game that acts so much as a sequel to the first movie (in some ways moreso than GB2) the business of the mandala being absent from the first movie doesn’t seem to fit very well. Then again, maybe the mandala was being employed in the first movie but it was just secondary to the Shandor Building (too much PKE across the city for the GBs to notice a tunnel system of ghosts).
The “clean bill of health 5 years ago” could be a reference to the Real Ghostbusters and that the guys had to pull Slimer away from the building again. I noticed (in addition to the obvious RGB ghost trap) that the Ecto-1 toy underneath the museum is dated 1987 and is meant to be a joke on RGB and its popularity. In both GB2 and this game Dan and Harold have done excellent jobs not contradicting the cartoon show, even though other artists might just brush it aside and say “it’s not my work and it’s not canon.”
Maybe they didn’t explain it very well in the next gen versions..idk but it was easy to follow in the wii
She was in the museum reading up on Shandor and learning about all the buildings he had altered when she was attacked and fled with the books. Stay-Puft was re conjured to try and capture her because Shandor (much like the Guys) figured out her connection. The Manadals were always present and helped channel the energy to summon Gozer the first time, the Guys destroyed one on accident at the beginning of the game; Shandor was gonna use them to bring Gozer back but decided to use the blood sacrifice and the Mandalas to become a god.
Thanks people. Does anyone have the text of that scene after defeating Stay Puft? I assumed she was possessed at one point because she (in the PS3 version anyway) mentions blacking out and being in a different location.
Spooky: That makes a lot of sense. If all that’s true though then I think there’s a plot hole (not with your theory, but with the story itself). When Stay Puft first returns why should he go after Ilyssa at all? Shandor’s intention was to bring him back and not become a destructor himself at that point, so if the only importance Ilyssa played was her Shandor blood then why should the ghost of Ivo Shandor care at that point? Shandor’s dialogue at the end of the game makes his intentions throughout pretty clear, but his motivations after the Stay Puft level seem to be informing his actions throughout the entire game.
well, in the game it explained that shandor and his cult were using ilyssa as a way to turn on the mandala and some of its innactive nodes I.E the sedgewick, the library, the museam. ( she said she had been to each)
the only one they didnt need her for was the one on shandor island because its gaurdian was still active (the slor).
But just like dana and louis the first time for THAT particular ritual in gb1, it was possible that Illyssa was to be sacrificed because she was a decendent of a top gozer worshipor for THIS ritual.
so they tried to kidnap her for shandors plan for gozer in thier own way (staypuft/Gozer ,the spider witch, The chairman, The collector (they failed) and then shandor (who succeded)
however when gozer failed again (in his stay puft form to kidnap Ilyyssa for the ritual), he saw it as unworthy for whorship and its title as destroyer and decided “if you want something done, do it yourself” and use the ritual he planned to use on gozer for himself.
he either killed gozer or gozer is trying to regain power and it will take to long until he’s back to full power and shandor went “to heck with it” remains a mystery.
so thats my idea of why she was needed for the “ultimate destructor” form anyway.
Personally, I think all this story confusion proves just how good the game is.
After re-visiting the game and dialogue, the story makes perfect sense to me. But the first time around I was so into the game play, I’d missed a lot of context.
Anyone else feel as if this may be the case with them?
OK, but the only other portal we know of is in the Library and that only opens when the Grey Lady is defeated. We’re still not certain how Gozer in Stay Puft’s form came back or why it was weaker than the first encounter.
We’re also not certain whether Illyssa was needed for the Mandala as a whole or whether she was only needed for Shandor to take the destructor form.
Why was Gozer so much weaker this time? Probably because the Mandala nodes were off this time. They were probably on in '84, but the GBs got lucky and sucked it back through the gate. But with the Central Park West temple destroyed, the Mandala nodes probably malfunctioned, hence why they were suddenly “off.”
Think of it, Gozer was much stronger as Stay Puft before, to the point where the GBs clearly seemed outmatched. I mean, I doubt Boson Darts increase the team’s abilities THAT much.
With Illyssa at the museum, the node there was reactivated by her Shandor blood, which stirred the PKE of the city enough to forcibly re-activate the other nodes, which probably gave Gozer a way back into our world.