Forgive my being pedantic, but I’m going to interpret this as characters versus plot because characters are part of the story, as is plot

But yeah, while I definitely mostly gravitate towards characters than plot (I guess that reflects my focus in media in general because I have a much easier time coming up with character conflicts than laying out plot in my writing), I still think both things need to be handled well to really pop. But then I also think amazing characters can carry a weak plot while the most intricate plot probably won’t grip me without cool characters.

However, I need to disagree on The Last Story versus Xenoblade. The Last Story has a great cast of secondary characters, but the blandness of Zael and Calista actively hampered my enjoyment of the game. Meanwhile, Xenoblade isn’t character heavy, but it also isn’t plot heavy and I actually like both the plot and characters a lot. They’re cool, well developed, and you get a whole affinity system to get to know them better. Xenoblade is just one of those games where everything clicks for me even though nothing stands out in particular. Except maybe the world design.