I ended up beating Gears 5 without even knowing it. I started the game way back when it came out, played it for a bit, then put it down when I got stuck on the Matriarch. It sat on my hard drive for quite a while until a few nights ago when I decided to pick it back up again.
Hopping back into a game after a long time away is tough enough to begin with. Hopping back in at literally the start of a boss battle required a bit more frustrating of an adjustment period than I was expecting. The matriarch can one shot kill at any point, making the multi-tiered battle that much more difficult even under normal circumstances. Needless to say, it was the reason I put the game down in the first place and also the reason I almost put it down again.
My advantage this time around was that I didn’t have Gears Fatigue. I’ve played every single Gears game since the series started way back in 2006, and I can attest that Gears Fatigue is a very real thing. This usually comes into play later in the game when the number of tough enemies ramps up and you really just kinda get tired of shooting at them. The gameplay loop in Gears has never really changed much over the years and over the course of any of the games, it can get really tiring ducking and shooting, ducking and shooting, ducking and shooting. Taking the time away really did make the second half more enjoyable than it would have been had I been forcing myself to grind through it from start to finish.
And I can say that coming back to it with fresh eyes did allow me to appreciate the much more even pacing the Gears 5 has in terms of combat encounters. Previous Gears games have been very formulaic; wander through a “corridor” reach an open area that’s obviously set up as a battle arena, then fight wave after wave of enemy until the music stops. That’s not to say these arenas and battles don’t still exist, but Gears 5 makes use of a lot of smaller skirmishes, which I find far more enjoyable and digestible. Many times an encounter will consist of a handful of enemies and will be over with in a matter of minutes. I find this much more accessible than the “big battle, corridor, big battle, corridor” pattern. Halo 5 did this and I fucking hated it. Not every battle needs to be epic, and Gears 5 for the most part understands that.
That said, Gears 5 still sticks to some familiar GoW staples. If a door needs to be cut open, you can bet your ass you’ll have to fight a wave of enemies until the task is done. That’s fine, as long as they don’t overdo it.
I began replaying the game on my PC monitor as I had it run through my Elgato, until I facepalmed and asked myself what the fuck I was doing. Gears 5 looks incredible on a 4K/HDR television, which I have. Going from my 1080p ugly ass monitor screen to my 4K was a night and day difference. If you have the option, use it.
Okay, review-y stuff aside, I do have to mention one part at the end of the game, and it’s a pretty big spoiler; so fair warning.
There is a point toward the end of the game when Kait (and thus, the player) is given an impossible choice; both Del and JD’s lives are in the balance, and only one can be saved. I chose to save JD, which honestly left me wondering why, especially since I had just played the vast majority of the game with Del by my side.
In this extra-super-racially-charged year of 2020, I had to ask myself if the reason for saving JD was the result of some deeper personal bias, and I honestly asked myself “why?”
The answer is, well, JD had the more interesting character arc. With his story from Gears 4, into the beginning of Gears 5, with his mistakes and attempt at redemption, it’s something that I wanted to see continue. He’s very likely the deepest character the Gears franchise has ever had. Even considering Kait’s inner turmoil, she is still just as one-dimensional as most of the other Gears cast. JD is a flawed and tormented character, and I like that. Besides, I couldn’t bare to see what his death would do to Marcus, who has lost his father and his wife already. As much as I liked Del, he never made as much of an impact, not only on myself, but in the story as well. Despite the amount of time I had spent with him as my squadmate, there was never much opportunity for him to really grow as a character. It will be interesting to see which choice the developers consider canon in Gears 6. (As a side note, I think it would’ve been a thousand times more effective to leave out the “Who do you save?” prompt, and just have the player aim and choose which tentacle to throw the knife at, completely oblivious to the outcome.)
Which brings me to the first sentence in this write-up. I beat Gears 5 without even realizing it. With the semi-open world setup of the game, the previous Acts all had kind-of a slow burn to them. Wandering around the areas hitting up the side-missions and other stuff all took a little while to get through, but once you hit that last Act, the action ramps up and the game becomes very linear. But just as the game seemed to really be ramping up, a boss fight with a gigantic Graboid-like monster that finally reached the screen-filling, epic boss fights from Gears past, it was over. it turned out that big boss fight was the boss fight. I spent the entire game waiting for a boss fight like the Brumak or the Corpser (remember when those were actually scary?) When I finally got it, the game was over.
There didn’t seem to be a lead-up to the final boss battle. It suffers very much from “middle chapter” syndrome. Similar to the Empire Strikes Back or The Two Towers, it doesn’t so much end as it just slaps you with a “to be continued.” Remember the ending of Halo 2? Yeah, like that.
Gears of War 2 had a T.B.C. but it also had a lead-up and a climax. Gears 5’s climax felt like what would have been the mid-point in any other Gears game. Is that just me?
In any case, the game is done. I don’t have any interest in the multiplayer so it’s time to move on. One more log on the fire!
