LabRats2 is pretty good once you get the mechanics going
Degrees of Lewdity is the single best and almost only text based/minimal graphic Hgame I play
Harem Hotel & Public Sex Life were two of this first games I got into on this site.
A sandbox isn't inherently bad, an empty sandbox is bad, and thus when you look at a sandbox early in development it seems bad, but you can only really tell if it will be bad once there is enough content.
Like, especially if they have one of those "everyone moves around all day and different events will trigger at each time/location"
gimicks, as long as there are enough interactions that you can hit "something" at almost any given location, you won't care that you didn't hit a specific thing. Granted with a linear story you will always hit the eventuality of "I'm looking for this very specific interaction" so in-game guides are also usually a must.