I've since finished Geneforge 4, an rpg so excellent that it has thoroughly washed away the bad taste of Starfield. Instead of taking some time to write out the review I was quite eager to start Geneforge 5. I will most likely write a lengthy review for 4 but at the moment I am more eager to play the finale to this wonderful series. I'm also a bit melancholy at the thought that there will be no more Geneforge after the ending screen. Its made me want to savor my time with 5 more hence my desire to create a series of logs. I have left what is this game's equivalent of the series tutorial area, the Whitespire mountains, and I'd like to look at how it compares to its predecessors.

I've found that the introductions in previous games served as a microcosm of the overall experience. Geneforge 1's evocative and brief jaunt through the two tutorial zones emphasise that game's player driveb approach to narrative. Geneforge 2's drawn out investigation and dramatic reveal of the Drypeak Mountains highlight its tale of conspiracy and high stake escalation. Geneforge 3's struggle to leave the ruined Shaper School is in emblematic of the explosive start of the Rebellion and all the chaos that ensues. And it is only natural that Geneforge 4's strategic campaign of constant forward momentum forward escalation starts off a rush of battles and military operations.

Geneforge 5 opens most similarly to 2 in that you are constrained to a subset of the greater world. You begin as an amnesiac worker in a Shaper facility within the Whitespire Mountains. Its evocative, mysterious and in my opinion more effective than 2's. Whereas thst game deliberately kept the existence of the Drypeak mountains from the player to create a satisfying reveal, 5 consistently reminds the player of the outside world to reinforce the imprisonment and claustrophobia of the player from the map screen much of Terrestria to local inhabitants consistently referring to nearby provinces in detail. Indeed, this sort of referential world building, somewhat used in prior titles, is utilised much more effectively here. This confidence in presenting a wider world is especially satisfying to someone who has lived this universe for four games.

Geneforge 5 also has the most unique origin of any of the series' protagonists. It might also be the most generic of any of these games: the amnesiac hero with special powers no one else has. Its the details that make it compelling. You are as much a test subject as a hero, being held captive by one of the Shaper council members, Rawal. Rahul, the first member of the Shaper Council you meet in the whole series, is an asshole. He sees you as nothing more than a tool to forward his own ends and treats any dissent on your part with extreme prejudice. Its an interesting inversion of power dynamics to reduce the player to such a servile role. Indeed, it was especially thematic as I chose the Servile class. It especially made my bond with Mehken meaningful. Like Geneforge 3, you have a potential companion in the form of a servile named Mehken. She is everything that Rahul is not. Empathetic, considering and just a decent person overall to commiserate with. Like Greta or Alwan from 3 she frequently asks for your positions on the wider Rebellion and its ethical dimensions, these discursive encounters giving you a chance to define the sort of person the amnesiac will be.

Both level design and the players goals interconnect to strengthen the the atmosphere of incarceration. Compared to the Forbidden Lands they are smaller and more tightly interconnected. Nearly half of the zones you explore encompass a labyrinthine industrial foundry that you gradually uncover as part of your task set by Rahul: hunting down a telepathic presence disturbing his industrial operations. Its a satisfying mixture of dungeon diving and intricate combat encounters that also offers interesting shortcuts back into the outside zones of the mountains. One particularly satisfying shortcut from the foundry brings you back to the zone you first started the game in except now populated by new enemies and better armour. In general, you are constantly rewarded with loot and experience so that you level much more frequently than in prior Geneforge intros.

The Whitespire mountains are a frigid, natural prison whose sole settlement is a cold, spartan town whose inhabitants are there to serve Shaper Rahul rather than escape him like you. Many of them seek to rebuild their lives in the solitude of Rahul's fiefdom as they share sparce details of the chaos of the outside world. More than any other area in the series thus far, the Whitespire mountains shows the nostalgic ideal of a Shaper society 'as it ought to be' before the Rebellion fatally disrupted it. In a world otherwise undergoing violent change, the Whitespire Mountains are a place frozen in time and its fitting that you have to leave them behind to begin the ending of the Rebellion and this franchise.