Inflatable Lemon

I think it looks good. The color palette feel more vibrant, the heavier outlines make both characters and their design stand out more, and the faces don't have (as much of?) whatever it is that I find off-putting about Kimihime's faces. Sprites do seem to be lower resolution than in Kimihime, with some pretty obvious aliasing in some of the VNDB screenshots, but that's a quite minor point for me.

I am not trying to single out Kimihime, these are just some of my (subjective) reasons why I am not hot on the art. The same applies to a lot of other VNs. I'll probably end up buying it eventually, as the premise does seem decently interesting, but right now I am in no hurry to add it to my backlog.

You asked if Veshurik saw "anything questionable" in that screenshot, and I pointed out two aspects that I found questionable. Bringing up examples from other VNs does does not erase those. And while the misshapen thumb is a minor oddity in one CG, the odd looking faces are not. Those are common to a lot of the characters and is something that I find pretty off-putting about this particular visual novel. And yes, saying that something "looks pretty weird", that it "looks kind of odd", or that it is "not particularly exciting" are all obviously subjective statements.

Her right hand looks pretty weird, mainly due to the mini-thumb, and a lot of the faces in this game look kind of odd, hers included. But everything else (character designs, backgrounds, etc.) looks fine to me, though it is not a particularly exciting art-style.

Pardon me, looks like I replied before you ninja-edited in that paragraph. However, I also overlooked a statement to that effect in the thread that I originally quoted: So it is quite clear that the discussion to release an all-ages version lies at the feet of Harukaze. While it is regrettable that FF were not able to persuade Harukaze to release an 18+ version, it is still silly to blame them for a decision made by another company.

Where have they stated this and did these interactions take place before or after the licensing deal was already made?

Fruitbat only signed on as the publisher after Noraneko was announced, and they have been explicit about the fact that they did not license the game, so it is pretty silly to blame them for something they had no part in: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1010600/discussions/0/1639788130288331293/?ctp=7#c1643167006305644608

The lowest that Clannad has ever been on Steam is 65% off: https://isthereanydeal.com/search/?q=clannad#/page:game/price?plain=clannad And the next big Steam sale is the upcoming summer sale (likely mid June), where Clannad has previously been sold at a 65% discount. So it could be worth the wait if you are not impatient to start reading it.

Extras are not accessible from the main menu, so I presume that the game has not been cleared. The saves themselves date to May 10th (in-game), which appears to be 5 actionable days of 25 after the prologue, pretty early in the game from what I can tell. Somebody who has played more of the game can probably pin-point exactly how far into the game this is, but I have only read a little bit of the prologue since I am finishing up another VN before really starting on Funeraba.

Did you buy the Steam version of Fureraba? I can confirm that that version does come with a couple of save files. It is possible that whoever uploaded the release build simply forgot to remove them.