There’s also a plethora of attack options which are also coded by type. It gets confusing pretty quickly and the tutorial does a poor job of explaining it well, to the point where I was almost done with the game before it actually clicked.  You even gain experience points and level up, with additional abilities you can purchase to assist your verbal sparring.

When I played Undertale I was stymied by the bullet hell monster attacks, to the point where I needed to restart the entire game and never actually finished. In Last Word, the mechanics still manage to honor the more strategic and thoughtful turn-based menu systems I’ve come to appreciate (and rely on) in RPGs but yet feel incredibly new.  The contemporary setting is also a nice change as well, and probably necessary, given that the debate-based battles mechanics are more at home in the parlor of a fine 20th century manor than they would be in a medieval castle.

It’s also blissfully short — only six hours — which means if you love RPGs but often find yourself shying away from them because you don’t have 60 hours of your life to waste away, Last Word is definitely worth checking out.