Story per say, but really for me it's all about atmosphere and vibe, I can handle mediocre gameplay as long as the game makes me feel something special. Some games are just plain fun though, and don't need a good story, but vibe is everything, I hate games like Doom, Quake, Mortal Kombat or any generic PC shooter/rpg made by narrow minded programmers, cuz the vibe in those games is just so damn bad, i hate angry for the sake of angry and the hole techno punk style.

obviously gameplay, would you buy the shittiest, most problem filled game even if it had a good story?

Agreed

Exact reason why I couldn't bring myself to finish Mass Effect.  Great story, bad combat system

Gameplay. If the story is awsome but you the gameplay sucks, it's just not fun.

story is very important to me, but I think gameplay takes the cake.

I like to have both but I think story could be more important in some genre's.

For example, in an FPS game, I couldn't care less about the story, just let me blow things up and make it look cool but I'd be in pain trying to finish a JRPG with a bad story.

Also, sometimes when the gameplay gets stale, only the story can keep the player engaged

Gameplay is more important than anything. A game needs at least good controls and needs to be fun. Story usually comes before graphics. It depends on the game, of course. For an RPG, story comes after gameplay. For a music game, music comes after gameplay. For a 3rd person shooter...oh wait, I don't like those games on consoles because they have bad gameplay (broken or complicated controls, at least for all that I have tried).

I tend to like platformers, puzzle, strategy, fighting, racing, and RPGs most and out of all those, RPGs are usually the only games with decent stories. Games like Tetris, Civilization 2, and SSBB might be my favorite games, but they have horrible stories and amazing gameplay. In fact, I found the story of SSBB to be even worse than most fighting games, oh well :)

Thus why I said, "very few." And in that few, about 95% of them are Western-developed.

I'll agree that Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga are obviously intended for adults (the cannibalism/sexual/philosophical undertones make them rather unsuited for teenagers), but Lost Odyssey? I don't know. I just went back to read about a half-dozen reviews, and most of them called it cliche as hell.

Lost Odyssey's tone is fairly mature(atleast for a T rated game anyway)

Not true.  In fact, games like MGS4, BioShock, and God of War have better storytelling overall than most RPGs with a few exceptions i.e. Mass Effect