Why does this game pretend to be a sandbox?
All the different characters paths are so intertwined that you basically have to play it in a certain order to advance. And it usually isn't immediately clear which character the game wants you to advance next. While I prefer sandbox to VN, the way this game actually works would be so much less frustrating in a VN format.
I had quite a bit of frustration when I last tried to play it due to wanting to make progress with just a couple characters (mom and sister), but was forced to progress pretty much every other character in the game to try to advance the characters I was actually interested in.
In the end, I never even was able to progress the characters I was interested in very far before I gave up on the game.