NOTE: This is a review from several years ago because the game and all its reviews was at one point removed by Gamespot - tells you a thing or two about this game already, doesn't it?
Well, one might have a hard time figuring out where to begin a review like this. This game can catch off guard even a person who doesn't have a problem with controversial moral subjects. Since Rapelay is a very special “game”, the review of it can also only be out of ordinary. Therefore, a word of warning about explicit descriptions is in order. I am just a reviewer and I am as impartial as I can be.
Let's get one thing clear first: Rapelay, as the name suggest, is a game about repeated rape, at least in its basic concept. Now don’t run away yet; Rapelay is as much about Rape as Call of Duty is about the real horrors of war. See apparently, rape in Japan leads to a romantic relationship, and after raping the three of the game’s characters for a while, the player will eventually be able to “tame” them and get them to engage in acts that could hardly be forced. Although my Japanese is weak, the response from the girl characters start sounding more positive as the game progresses. Rapleay is a playing out of a Japanese tinted male fantasy, and as with all games, it is somewhat removed from reality. For crying out loud, there is a scene in the game where you molest a girl in a train full of people.
The story of the game is told through screenshots accompanied with text, in traditional Hentai game style, while the action is carried out in 3D environments. The game starts with the main character getting arrested for harassing a girl on a subway train and then being released eager for revenge. The player then gets to harass each of the 3 available girls in different locations, ending with the actual rape. As the player rapelays his acts, more environments become available and the game keeps count of player’s “achievements”.
There is no clear goal to the game, but if one had search for one, it would probably be screwing the girls into liking specific parts of the intercourse.
The game can be played almost entirely with the mouse (I bet you can figure out why). Much is centered on clicking and then dragging the mouse for the basic sex mechanic. The player can decide on positions and control things like pace and dialogue. The pace, and thus the eventual orgasm, is decided by the right timing in clicking and dragging. Unless the player installs a separately downloadable uncensored patch, the private parts will be censored, as per Japanese law.
What should become quickly apparent to anyone is that this is not really a game either. There is not much else to the gameplay other than sex, executed with simplistic control mechanics. There is no careful stalking and there is very little in the way of dialogue, unlike other traditional Japanese Hentai games where the dialogue is a major part of the experience. Also a player can only “lose” the game if he gets killed by one of the girls in in one very specific case or if one of the girls gives birth. Instead Rapelay is all about the sexual contact. It is interactive hentai pornography. Such a suggestion would be supported most by the fact that a player cannot lose, with a sole exception of getting killed by one of the girls in in one rare case.
An “Adults Only” rating for this game would be too kind. It would be like putting “Everyone” rating for the controversial Grand Theft Auto games. Rape is just the tip of the iceberg for this game. In addition there is incest, gang bang and implications of minor sex, which may require a tough stomach even from the kinky player. The only thing that seems missing is being able to smear feces all over the characters.
In the graphics department the game will struggle to complete even the worst looking games on the market. However, out of all sex simulators I’ve seen, Rapelay is still the best looking one. Most of the resources went into the female models. Their faces are relatively well detailed, there are sweat effects and the animations are ok. The rest of the game looks terrible. I don’t understand why the developers used such low resolution textures.
There are no complaints in the sound department though. The actions sounds properly disgusting. It may just be a little too good in some cases, if you know what I mean.
So is there anything good about this “game”? Well, you don’t come to me for politically correct affirmations of your internal human pretentiousness. You come to me for an objective review. The truth is that what makes this game bad is also what makes it one of the best games of this genre.
See, you can buy a western made sex simulator and I have seen some of them. Technically they might offer more features, but they are the driest dumbest most forgettable things ever. Rapelay on the other hand feels much more alive; The AI girls have a particular character. You can sense a mind of the human being behind the perverted animations and many of the sexual poses and situations in this game have a unique feel to them. On the one hand this makes the game more disturbing. On the other hand, it is the only good thing about the game since the graphics and the gameplay are both quite bad.
In short, Raeplay is either a really bad game or one of the best sex simulators. I choose to look at the positive side.