I've been thinking about this question a lot and after pondering it for a few days, I think I'm finally ready to answer it.
I say gameplay matters for me more for me than the story. Don't let that confuse you for me thinking that I don't care about stories, its just that having a good story alone doesn't make me want to finish a game. For me, if the game just isn't fun for me, and the story is amazing, I start to lose the reason I'm playing, which is to have fun. This is because I'd have to slog through being bored to get to what my enjoyment, which inherently makes me not want it that badly and stop playing altogether. For me, doing fun things within the game's world itself should come first and the story should help advance and add weight to the game while the gameplay itself locks you in and makes you want to keep playing.
There are games that weave the story into the gameplay beautifully. Bloodborne, where you are a quick and powerful hunter which hunts monsters and beasts, which is already fun to play. The story than helps advance the game by giving you a goal, to end the nightly hunt and also adds weight to the story by giving you information on why you are a hunter, why there are beasts, where they came from, and why you are so quick and powerful to combat them, and all the answers to all these questions that relate to gameplay, are also all big parts of the story itself. You are a hunter because Yarnham has a cure for all diseases but the nightly hunt begins when you arrive and in order to survive you need to become a hunter. There are beasts because the townspeople's addiction to the city's blood had a side affect and turned them into vicious beasts themselves, which is also where they came from. You are so quick ad powerful because you got a blood transfusion upon arrival which makes it so that you are faster and stronger in order to combat the beasts during the hunt. This seamless weaving of story and gameplay is what I feel games should be. The gameplay was made fun first and the story adds depth and weight to the world and your actions where the gameplay itself resides and explain why and how you can do what you do without the need for many cut scenes or forcing story down your throat. Bioshock and Undertale are other games that also have masterful gameplay to story dynamics in them.
Now there are games that focus on story but I personally felt the gameplay was lacking, which made me ultimately uninterested. The Last of Us comes to mind for me. I know a lot of people love the game's story and I'm not saying that it was a bad story. Just that story alone cant make a game great. Gameplay is the meat while story is the savory sauce used to accent and help the meat be even more delicious, not have a great sauce but a dry piece of meat. Now the gameplay in TLOU works but it just feels a bit...clunky and sort of lacking. The fire fights are fun against humans but anything having to do with infected was a slog for me. You either have to slow and ploddingly sneak through hordes of them or expend tons of ammo getting rid of them and the sneaking is not really engaging itself. In games with stealth, you need to gave a lot of options for getting through areas, like in the Metal Gear Series to keep the player thinking about creative ways to get past enemies, which makes planning out unique routes very fun. In TLOU, you can only throw a brick or bottle. That's it. You can hit an enemy or use it as a distraction. These sections are also filled with One Hit Kill enemies called Clickers that kill you instantly if you get anywhere near it if its alerted. With only one option being the bottle, you end up either waiting for large amounts of time until they separate into a easier way to stealth attack them (which takes like 5 whole seconds of you standing in the open, hoping you don't get spotted) or going into a gun fight with what little ammo you have so you better be a good shot in that case. Moments like this where I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place constantly makes me want to put the game down. There isn't even a variety of infected, just the Clickers, big ones that OHK you and eat all your ammo, and normal ones, where in Bloodborne, you get a ton of sickly and different horrors to face. Yes, TLOU is supposed to be 'realistic' but the human enemies could have wielded different weapons that stood out or acted differently and they could have gotten creative with the infected and their abilities. I will never say that TLOU is a bad game, because it isn't. This was just an example of a game with a compelling story but lacking gameplay which made me put it back on the shelf.
On the other hand, I will happily play a game which are fun but offers little story. I love most Nintendo games and it works for me since they really focus on the level design, enemy types, obstacles, challenge, and tight controls rather than trying to tell a super compelling narrative or the story take a back seat in favor of adventuring or exploring. For me, having fun should be what makes you want to play the game. If the story does that for you, more power to you! I'm just glad you're having fun as well.
If you read all this, you're awesome! lol Hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to add or to counter anything in it, discussion is always encouraged.
