As far as I know, the basic difference between NTR and cheating, netori, sharing or whatever else is pretty clear. NTR is cheating without the woman truly wanting it — whether it’s due to pressure, corruption, being forced, or something else. That part depends on how good each dev is at writing their story. The point is that it leans more toward apathy than love or desire. In fact, it shouldn’t be called cuckold either, since no one is really consenting to the NTR, unless it’s part of the plot or something. And I really don’t like when that gets mixed up — entering a game expecting NTR and it turns out to just be plain cheating, with the girl enjoying it and the MC being a loser for no reason.
It’s not 100% rape because it’s approached differently, but it’s the closest thing to it. In fact, I often come across games that have the NTR tag but not the rape tag, and that’s already a red flag that it’s not going to be real NTR, and most of the time, that’s exactly the case. NTR is really hard to do right. In short, netorare should always be cheating where neither of them actually wants it — not the cuckolded guy, and not the girl either.
