G-senjou no Maou is a great Visual Novel with a deep and complex story with interesting characters.
The closest thing to Saya no Uta would be Swan Song. though rather than being scary or creepy, it's somewhat unsettling as it delves deep into human depravity and evil. It takes place in a small town beset by an earthquake that's apocalyptic in scale. It takes a while to get the ball rolling, but once it rolls this is a solid no-holds-barred story about the end of civility and everything that entails.
Kara No Shoujo is a good horror mystery, casting you as a private detective caught up in a bizarre murder case. Good story, good ensemble of characters, the only downside from your point of view is that it's very easy to get a bad end. It's possible to screw up if you don't make the right choices. But that's half the fun, you don't know what will happen next.
There's also the Muv-Luv Series. To one is not familiar with the Muv-Luv VNs, the easiest way to put it is: Starts of badly, turns into pure epic.
I will write more about the Muv-Luv Series, but will put it into a spoiler tag to save space on your wall:
The main eroge of the series (Muv-Luv, and Muv-Luv Alternative) have both English Patches by Amaterasu translations (these guys did an incredible work).
Muv-Luv Alternative has been dubbed by many as the absolutely best VN ever, which even though might be an exaggeration, it's not far from being true. High quality technobubbling, politics, war drama, hard sci-fi, existential crisis, epic conflicts, extremely high production values and even a bit of eroticism. The only drawback is that the first arc is much inferior to the latter two (but, it's still great and flavored by politics). Although inferior, it does not mean it is unenjoyable. Also, To put it simply, in order to understand Muv-Luv Alternative, and fully enjoy it/appreciate it, you must be familiar with the plot/characters of the original Muv-Luv.
Muv-Luv consists of two arcs (which are around ~14 hours each to complete):
- Muv-Luv Extra: Is your typical moe/slice of life/romance story, with stereotypes and stupid humour. What could make it enjoyable is the high production values it has, but... Still sucks bad. It's quite painful to read it till the end.
- Muv-Luv Unlimited: Is a preparation for MLA. It's mostly Military training, with minimal robot action/politics or other awesome shit like these. It's also pretty mediocre as a total, but extremely important because it adds a lot to MLA's feeling/atmosphere.
Below is a Diagram to show the relations between the two VNs (three stories in total):
Okay, we know that it will be a pain to read Muv-Luv (especially Extra). The entire VN is around 28 hours. And that’s a lot of hours to invest in a somewhat mediocre VN.
There are other Alternative options on how to prepare for MLA:
a) Recommended Option 1
Read a couple of hours of the Extra part of the VN (until all characters are introduced).
Then read the summary of it by Amaterasu translations (http://amaterasu.is.moelicious.be/mlplot/), and skip until you reach Unlimited. Afterwards, simply read the whole Unlimited and proceed to MLA.
b) There is a manga adaptation of Extra.
Read the Extra manga and Amaterasu’s summary.
Then begin the Muv-Luv VN by skipping the Extra part and move straight to Unlimited, after which you proceed to MLA.
c) Recommended Option 2
There are manga adaptations of both Extra and Unlimited.
Read the Extra (then Amaterasu’s Summary of Extra) and read Unlimited Manga (then Amaterasu’s summary of Unlimited), and proceed to MLA.
d) Not Recommended
Read only the Amaterasu summary of both Extra and Unlimited before proceeding to MLA.
(Again, this is really NOT RECOMMENDED... It's still possible, but you ruin a lot of the experience. Just don't do it .
....If you're wondering where to find all of these, don't ask me, ask google.
I would also recommend getting into the Nasuverse (Ah, the Nasuverse. What a horrible place filled with murder, rape, war, and suicide. ) . I would recommend TYPE-MOON's second released work, and their breakout hit...Tsukihime.
The story is mainly in very well-written dialogue and the main character's own mostly stream-of-consciousness perspective (only twice in the game do we get another character's direct point of view). It's more coherent than it sounds. Usually. One of the two major complaints about Kinoko Nasu's writing style is that he can get rather verbose at times, typically showing up when Shiki mentally waxes philosophical, or when world-building exposition is involved.
I would definitely describe this one as "character-driven" and it's a good visual novel. Just note that it does not have fancy graphics.
Nocturne is my personal favorite. If you want atmosphere, a challenging but rewarding and fun battle system and an awesome soundtrack that's the way to go. The story is minimalistic and takes a backseat to the atmosphere, but it's still very interesting.
The SNES SMT games have great atmosphere and stories, but the gameplay is simplistic. You're probably not far enough yet, but eventually you can get through most of the game on autobattle if you have the right bullets.
If you like the first person dungeon crawling of SMT1 but want something a bit more modern and with a much better battle system check out Strange Journey.
If you want pure story go for the Digital Devil Saga games and the Persona 2 games.
I've played Yume Nikki and enjoyed it quite a bit, once I got passed the initial confusion of not knowing where to go or what to do, haha.
Haven't played Ib yet but I'll definitely download it and give it a shot. I have played Corpse Party though which is another RPG maker game like those two that you've probably heard of. I enjoyed that one quite a bit as well.
Well for atmospheric you can't go wrong with The Witcher series or STALKER.
Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings EE, with the expansion pack included, is absolutely the best RPG in recent years and it blows Skyrim out of the water entirely and with extreme prejudice. (Seriously.)
For STALKER, I recommend STALKER: Call of Pripyat with the MISERY mod. ( It's one of the most enjoyable mods I've tried in a while)
Another one to consider is Alice: Madness Returns. It is a beautiful game but I can't help feeling bad for it. The gameplay is functional but mediocre and very forgettable. If they made the gameplay a little more interesting then this would probably end up on my favourite games list since I love the environments, atmosphere and characters.
I have heard some good things about Dear Esther/Amnesia but have yet to play it.
For strong plot/story:
Alpha Protocol, it is a rather brilliant story set in the cutthroat world of modern espionage, designed by Chris Avellone (the same man who masterminded Planescape: Torment). I do have to admit that there are certain flaws in the game (animation, some gameplay conventions), but the strength of the plot and the extremely well made characters more than make up for any deficiencies in this game IMO.
You have pretty awesome taste yourself (You are rather like myself in that you prefer the unconventional anime/manga moreso than the conventional anime/manga ) , anyway for horror I would recommend from your Plan to watch list:
Kara no Kyoukai is a rather awesome title in that genre.
