I recently updated magit to 20151025.1115, which gave me a message about git-commit-mode incompatibility. I now, instead, have a package git-commit at version 20151022.933 (from the magit project) installed alongside magit, both through the M-x list-packages interface). In my global git config, core.editor=emacs -nw. My emacs is version 24.5, compiled from source (Gentoo linux).
Before this update when I ran git commit from a terminal (outside of emacs), I would get an emacs instance in a mode aware of git commits -- "syntax" highlighting and C-c C-c to commit.
After this update when I run git commit, the emacs window is in Fundamental mode. I can still commit with C-s C-x but the mode is not git aware and I lose helpful text coloring of my commit message.
What do I need to change to get my terminal-launched commits to use a git-aware mode for commiting? Commiting within magit works as expected, I am just trying to "fix" the behavior from a git-launched emacs -nw session.