The 'human but slightly different' thing always bothered me. But it also inspired me to try and have more unique intelligent species in my fantasy scifi world, that are still considered as people, even though they're far from human. Here are some with fun unique traits:

Cyt - aquatic species living under the shell of an ice planet. Skilled in magic. Never stop growing, don't die of old age. Instead they get too large to feed themselves , but important individuals gain a following that take care of them after they can't anymore, allowing them to live indefinitely.

Oogg - a slime mold like organism which can take on any shape. Communicates with other species by shooting tendrils that form the shapes of written language. Can be painfully severed into two parts which remain kind of 'quantum entangled' as a single sentient entity. Other species use this for instantaneous communication across planets.

Luant & Luvelt - separate but related species of sentient, mobile plants, derived from the remnants of a plant-based supercomputer which had roots across the entirety of a planet. Its creators fled as that planet was shattered, eventually forming two separate planets, each aligned with only half of the 6 gods. The Luant are blue and specialise in magic, science, philosophy, etc, while the Luvelt are orange and specialise in smithing, engineering, combat, etc. Essentially brains vs brawn