then i saw the fucking 'moral compass' mechanic. yikes. really? it's so unsubtle.... like come on. imagine if DE did this! this is just embarassing.
my snap knee-jerk reaction was "actually these are two very different things, DE trusts that the player can actually read and comprehend the dialogue options, it doesn't give helpful political alignment labels as if the devs don't expect the player to immediately ping 'we should gas all immigrants' as 'fascist/nationalist' or 'we should execute our kings, melt down their crowns, and give all the gold to the poor' as 'communist,' and it sure as hell doesn't give you a convenient alignment gauge"
and then i realized how fucking convenient both those things would have been in Shin Megami Tensei IV, a game which not only keeps close track of your political alignment on a single-axis scale but will lock you out of the best ending if you are not sitting very slightly to one side of center at the final dialog choice ("precisely centered" doesn't work; the final mandatory dialogue choice gives you like 10 points in either direction, enough to kick you out of the "safe zone" if you're already in it)
and now i'm acknowledging "maybe Broken Roads is a game where absolute transparency regarding my responses and political alignment is mechanically useful" but also wondering "do I want to play a game where absolute transparency regarding my responses and political alignment is mechanically useful?"