VN all the way
most sandbox games (95%) simply arent clear what to do, or even worse have multiple parts of a day which you need to skip and have to get the exact part of said day
Allow me to be the odd one out... Sandbox.
BUT with the caveat that it must be a well made Sandbox.
I just like the more Gamey Games. VNs are good, especially if they have choices and branching paths. But KNs just don't do it for me. I'm someone who struggles to focus at the best of times...
That said I prefer a good sandbox over VN, the problem is most sandboxes are just an never-ending grind with very little payoff. So: Good Sandbox > Good VN > bad VN > bad sandbox
I feel like both can be insanely poor quality at times, but I'll usually have more struggles or glitches with a sandbox game rather than a VN. For ease of access VN's because you can just skip all text or play a kinetic novel if you really don't care, but most sandbox games have some level of grinding you need to do, so you have to invest time into it.
Sandbox gets a bad rap because when done badly it sucks really hard. But if I had to choose, I prefer it. Usually sandbox has repeatable events which can be fun to go back to.