From my perspective the game play mechanics could be outstanding. If the narrative is hot garbage I am going to notice it. I'd dock the game points over it too. I might lose interest in it completely if it's so bad the entire game consists of arbitrarily engaging in the mechanics, with no real goals in mind.
The contrary exists, when a narrative-strong game is boring because there's no gameplay to play with. I'm having issues with many visual novels because the story and narrative can be wonderful, no one tries to put gameplay bits to cut in between two reading sessions, and each reading session can take forever and get boring when the player doesn't have a single word to place. And by gameplay I ain't talking about placing the circle shape in the circle hole, that's not what a decent gameplay is to me hahaha.