Dear dalli_x, it's still an AVN game and it's specific world.
DPC has even made things like special renders decent and not just pointlessly obscene like it usually done in most of games of AVN genre. There is some kind of hint everywhere, but not a literal one or a hint to something significant like a spoiler, it would just be stupid move. What happens to other characters in a real game using some ideas and templates from special renderers does not mean anything at all. I.e. it's great that you see the similarity of a particular scene or place of its action, but it doesn't really give anyone anything. The game takes place in a limited space and for the most part in college with rare exceptions. With such success, you can attract any crazy assumption and theory. Which is what you did with Riona and MC's cyberpunk setting. You pulled nerds, computers, and so on by the ears... It's strange that not the matrix and Neo with a Trinity. You seen Rio in lockers, then you get Maya's scene in that lockers... so, what? As well as most or all of other examples you mentioned regarding special renders.
I believe that the root of the problem is that you place TOO much hope and expectation on the DPC. In particular, by hints, hidden and secret meanings in almost EVERY render, scene and pixel. It's not true and never will be. He is not that kind of author and this is not that kind or type of the game. He put some clues and hints here and there from time to time, but it seems that you put sense in every part of the scene, render, etc, assuming that DPC put all that and had all this in mind.
You know that there is something like a proverb or saying - that the hardest thing to find or discover is what lies on the surface. You are so passionate about searching for secret meanings, hints, hidden clues or symbols that you often do not see the obvious or think that something hidden is more important than what the author openly shows or declares. This is an example of a tired police investigator who, desperate to solve a case, embarks on all sorts of crazy assumptions, although all he had to do was take a closer look at the facts that already exist and work with them better. Even if you really found a few moments, or something that the DPC really put some secret meaning into, you missed a bunch of simple and understandable moments, burying them under tons of far-fetched secret meanings and theories. You cannot think clearly and most importantly simple, you are constantly looking for secret meanings and hints everywhere, even where they simply do not exist.
BADIK is very decent, one of the best games in genre, but you are trying or hoping to find here that were never and will never exist. I have a feeling that you treat it so high, that it fuels and exagregates your expectations too much.
I may tell what I'm excited of in BADIK and what I really like, what catched me and still fuels my interest and affection to this game. Including writing all this stuff, replying to posts like this one and writing my own from time to time, sometimes as huge as fuck.
Do you ever got a feeling when reading book or watching movie or even playing some game that you "trust" to what you read, see or play with? When you feel a relation to something or almost anything of what's happening on the screen or given imagination? That you like some of the characters so much, that even develop with time some kind of feelings to them, start to care, etc about them? It's natural feeling and there is nothing to be ashamed of. Even if some people doesn't admit something like this, it works in the way I described it. When you like book, movie, tv series or game that much, you became a fan in some way. This may develop into different ways. Some starts to create fan-art, some writes essays regarding the "world" and characters they attracted to, etc.
I like this game, because it gives me a good nostalgia and vibes of my own student life. A half of MG LIs are similar to what I experienced in real life (J&M and Bella cases, while I never met something like Jill and Sage). I can't relate to a lot of things regarding frats, etc, because it's not practiced in my country, the maximum we have is a dorms, and even this is not casual and usual thing. Could you imagine the conjoined parties with your teachers and even administration of university? Or the ones, that took place in several meters and classes from each other? That's the parallel world to the BADIK and how it works and usually done in the USA, but I can understand and "trust" what I see and get a right feel and mood regarding what I see. I understand how it "works", I don't have a feeling that I can't trust to what I see and that all of this is some kind of fake or fantasy of author. That's very important.
I like most of the characters. Even the antagonists. Because their stories and characters are believable and plausible. Yes, there is a certain amount of humor or absolutization of some ideas or images, but where is it not?
I like humor in this game. I LOVE it. I laughed during playthroughs more than when I watched all those movies from the 2000s together.
I know that BADIK renders quality is not perfect. But, when some authors put so much effort and attention to the pure renders like textures, ideal posing, rendering quality, etc, but I catch myself thinking and understand what I like about this game and what distinguishes it from its competitors. It's DPC attention to details in absolutely another ways. To details which reflect game world details, something happening in backgrounds, reflecting and referring to some of the player previous choices, etc. Aaaand, I absolutely like DPCs work with characters facial expressions, emotions, etc. I really don't know who ever did or do it better. Each and absolutely every scene and dialogue have it's proper reflection in characters face expressions, emotions, etc. It helps you to "trust" to what you see and read a lot. Because it's very relative to a real life and real conversations with people. It helps a lot to immerse yourself in the world of the game, to believe what is happening and makes the characters plausible and that they seem to be real.
I like the music in this game and how perfectly tracks selected for each particular scene or moment in the game. This as well helps to set the proper mood and create particular atmosphere.
But, now seriously, what you expect from AVN? Even SO decent? Why you don't listen to it's author? That this game is mostly a comedy diluted with a college and teen drama. Yes, it's not completely lighthearted and goofy story like some teen movies of the early 2000s, but it's still based on them and that particular "spirit." BADIK raises questions and problems from real life, there're enough of drama and moments that can make you think or rethink of something, even about your own life. But... For example - AL was a thriller and drama with a comic moments, while the BADIK is the opposite.
To summarize what has been said... Don't raise your expectations SO high. It is normal when theories or assumptions about the course of the plot, the fate of the characters, possible endings or some plot points that have not yet been revealed collapse. But the worst thing that can happen to you is when your expectations are shattered by reality. When you expect something incredible, you've been looking for clues for years, and most of them are explained by a couple of phrases or a short scenes... or even worse, it is simply forgotten as an insignificant detail or because that detail never existed. Such scrupulous attention to details and the search for some secret meanings is simply incompatible with THIS game and genre in general, this "world" and this plot. That number of theories, questions and other things simply does not have the opportunity to be disclosed in any way, because there are only 7 episodes left and most of them will be devoted to the personal life of the main character, but not to the satisfaction and disclosure of some incredible theories, conspiracies and assumptions. Of course, we are expecting some huge plot twists, surprises, the complete reverse of some characters personalities and faith in them, bc DPC does it well. Leah in AL was impressive, as was the fake main villain Peter, that was a great red herring.
Have a nice day.
