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The Fruit of Grisaia and Steins;gate are also pretty good.
Is a great place to be asking these sorts of questions. The community there will be happy to provide all sorts of recommendations.
I'm guessing your after reads with strong emotional feels.
There's Planetarian, also made by KEY. It's pretty short.
The Fruit of Grisaia (Grisaia no Kajitsu), I strongly recommend. Has feels ranging from "warm and fuzzy" to "despair inducing".
https://vndb.org/v5154
ef - a fairy tale of the two is also recommended. Emotionally, this hit me like a ton of bricks at one point...
https://vndb.org/v88
If My Heart Had Wings. A lot more laid back, but still a good read. The official translation is pretty bad, but there's a new fan translation out there, so get that.
https://vndb.org/v9093
I'll second Steins;Gate. Nice if you want a suspenseful sci fi plot.
~Update for those interested~
My total VN path:
Katawa Shoujo -> DDLC -> Saya No Uta -> Clannad -> Tomoyo After -> Little Busters
I just finished Little Busters and wow. I'm tempted to just go ahead and play everything by Key in order of creation. However I realized that it took me a zillion hours each for both CLANNAD and Little Busters and so I need to be sensitive to time constaints!
At first I thought Katawa Shoujo and Saya No Uta were great - some love story, some fap material, some...disturbing fap material, and some love craftian horror. Good times. But CLANNAD and Little Busters showed me that what I really want is to live that epic surrogate other life with love and vivid characters - although I enjoy the hentai, it truly is optional.
Because CLANNAD and Little Busters and thus presumably many others are going to take me a hundred + hours each to finish, I really should spend some time prioritizing things. I only have about 8-12 months left (at a minimum). My original plan was just grab a hopefully decent list like this one just to make it easy:
https://forums.fuwanovel.net/topic/2151-50-translated-vns-you-should-read-before-you-die/
But now I realize there is NO WAY I can guarantee finishing 50 VNs in a year! Nor is there a perfect way to objectively get a list of what's best, of course.
So I'm happy just to keep getting opinions, and this is probably a good place to ask it since I'm gonna want more stuff like CLANNAD probably.
1. What's your fav-must-read VN of all time?
2. Should I just go ahead and read everything by Key if I loved the three I've played so far, or are some of them skippable? Some places on the internet say Little Busters is their best.
3. What do you think of that list of 50 read-before-you-die that I linked? Is it good enough, or would you interject one or two opinions about some on the list that should be added or removed? I only read CLANNAD because some mentioned it was missing from the list.
Thanks to any soul that was bored enough to read and respond to all this :>
2. I don't think you necessarily have to read everything by Key, but I think it's at least worth it to give them all a try. I believe they are all relatively different except Kanon has many similarities to Clannad.
3. This list seems pretty darn thorough. I don't really know of any to add. I also haven't read a good number of them, so I don't know if you should remove any personally.
https://vndb.org/v/all?q=;fil=tagspoil-0;rfil=;o=d;s=pop
I'm also taking into account this reddit list:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/top10/2781-the-top-10-visual-novels-as-voted-by-the-r-visualnovels
As well as this list of organized recommendations from fuwanovel that includes two different 50 "read before you die" lists:
https://forums.fuwanovel.net/topic/4965-recommendations-read-before-asking/
And also also I haven't given up the idea of reading everything by Key, I feel some sense of loyalty after getting rocked by CLANNAD and Little Busters and Tomoyo After. I just wish Kud Wafter would get translated in my lifetime -.-.
From researching the different types of VNs, I think I'm most interested in Nakige. Utsuge interests me but I'm afraid it would make me want to die even more than DDLC lol.
I'll keep this in mind. Thank you. I've actually been saving the "CLANNAD Side Stories" for emergencies. It makes me happy knowing there's still some CLANNAD content I haven't seen left in the world, helps with the sad feeling of knowing I've finished it all. But I'm happy to learn that I can probably consider the anime to also be a nice revisit. Maybe I'll wait and hit it up in a couple months.
Rewrite is currently my "save the best for last" VN. I know it's probably fantastic, and I know that Key games do the trick for me, and I know that I used up two of the best ones already with Little Busters and CLANNAD already (with honorable mention to Tomoyo after story). So I think my best bet would be to branch out a bit first and try some non-Key games and keep that one in reserve.
Or I don't know, maybe I'm being completely silly, and there's more awesome VNs then I could ever possibly finish and I should just attack them all from the top heh. I'm just somehow kinda scared knowing you can only really experience them once. I'm all sentimental and silly about this stuff nowadays. I still haven't recovered from just how ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up my first VNs have made me.
Currently eyeballing the Muv-Luv series and Grisaia no Kajitsu. At least some of those is still school-ish so not too far from what I've enjoyed so far in setting, perhaps. I think I'll hit Stein's Gate when I'm ready for a new setting, and I think I might fit in the older Key games between the bigger longer other VNs.
These two definitely seem like good places to start. I've played through two of the routes of Grisaia a while back and had a good time with it. I also agree with meanfactor about giving ef - a fairy tale of the two a shot. That one should emotionally feel even more like the Key visual novels if you want an even smoother transition to other visual novels.
That aside, I'd second Planetarian and Saya no Uta as two great games that don't have much to do with Clannad. And as a special mention outside of the visual novel realm, there is the text-heavy Planescape: Torment RPG often lauded for its stellar writing. It has nothing to do with Clannad whatsoever, but seems to fit your original request for a game that is "as good".
My initial reaction: It was an interesting experience. It wasn't too short, it wasn't ♥♥♥♥♥♥...but it wasn't great either. After playing nothing but small crappy VNs and uber epic VNs (CLANNAD, Little Busters) I found it very interesting to play one that was straight middling; completely worth my time and fun to play, but not even in the same ball park as one of the epics.
The one thing Muv Luv extra had going for it that I never got in CLANNAD and Little Busters...I had to fap like 15 times. Plot kinda rediculous and hard to take seriously, but it sure it sexy...
and yes, you have to read thru the 7/10 bit of muv-luv before you get to the amazing which is alternative.
I'm currently powering through it. I didn't start losing motivation until after my second playthrough of unlimited when i realized it ONLY deviates at the very end. I need more playtime with new material between each final emotional scene or there just isn't enough buildup...like Muv Luv Extra, it did a better job of it. It simply had more content for each character's playthrough.
That said, I was absolutely flipping my ♥♥♥♥ on the first playthrough of Muv Luv Unlimited - what a neato concept. I think one playthrough of it is perfect, it works fine as a short expansion of the original. Now I'm excited to get to alternative.
But. I'm slightly concerned I'm missing out.
Can you tell me...without spoilering me...if there's any reason I should get every last ending in Muv Luv Extra/Unlimited?
In extra I got everything but what I assume is common ending B.
In Unlimited I did Meiya and I'm satisfied and want to quit now. Am I going to miss out on anything that unlocks and is important if I go straight to alternative?
Impression: WOW! ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥! Woooooooooow!
Shirogane is the worst protagonist of the top games I've played, but other than that it's still 10/10 with Little Busters and CLANNAD. It's just hard to follow Tomoya, who was so badass. Even Riki from Little Buters with his completely inconsistent and somewhat vacuous personality was better than Shirogane's whiny piece of ♥♥♥♥ personality. It really feels like Tomoya is the star of the show, while in the other games its the female love interests. Meiya....
I was going to play Stein's Gate next but I don't want to do two time travel games in a row. So I'll shortly look for a different next choice. Knocking out the 3 extra games that come after MLA atm while I think about it.