He knows most who speaks last

Last Word is an RPG about verbal discourse. No, not that kind of-- not with dialog trees or shit like that. Last Word is a combat-based game where the fighting is done with character attacks and tactful submission. You gain experience by winning arguments. If that isn't one of the coolest game ideas you've ever heard, then, you're wrong.

Unfortunately, one of the biggest problems with Last Word is that this combat isn't quite as fully-realized as it could be; that is, although you'll select moves in battle based on conversational tactics, the words associated with them are never spoken or even subtitled. Exactly what sharp-witted barb left your opponent in tatters is left to the player's imagination.

But it's an easy shortcoming to get over, because the word-battling is also very mechanically deep. There are two separate resources to manage, there is a buff/debuff point scale, there is a tug-of-war line to balance, there is a rock-paper-scissors cycle to move elements -- and this is all before special upgrade abilities come into play. It takes several fights to get the hang of all of Last Word's knobs and dials, but what's really remarkable is that even in the game's most difficult battles, every resource and every move can have an important purpose.

Outside of combat, the game is a well-written (and excellently-typed) story about aristocratic houses, a bottle episode mystery, and the fascinating foibles of a world where people fight each other with words. Although the critical path is rather short, there is a wealth of optional content to explore, that feels worthwhile just for the sake of filling in blanks in the game's backstory.

It's a shame, then, that a non-trivial amount of that optional content requires experience-grinding or pixel-hunting to unlock. And there are a few extras that can be permanently missed as the game progresses; they're not relevant to the storytelling, so it's not a big deal, but still a slightly obnoxious design quirk.

As in To the Moon, Last Word suffers somewhat from the RPG Maker engine underpinning it: The controls are garbage, menu transitions can be flaky, and the game lacks crucial options like screen resolution. But the good news is that Last Word has a tiny map, so it isn't as ass-blastingly annoying to walk around in as To the Moon was.

Despite its shortcomings - the less-than-fully-whelming combat flavor, the occasionally archaic extra content, the tire fire that is RPG Maker - Last Word is a laudably creative game that's also impressively well-executed.

I would be very interested to see a spiritual sequel with a bigger budget, done in an engine that isn't just ... shit.

Better than: To the Moon
Not as good as: Chrono Trigger, I guess
I'm serious about that sequel: I would kickstart the fuck out of that.

Progress: Secret ending.