its like we teleported to an alternate universe right now where, uh, mega man games had super deep stories and there were 20-minute cutscenes between every level
and i told someone in that world "yeah idk i just like mega man because the level design is good and i like shooting stuff, sick OST too"
and they were like "wow, i can't imagine ever playing mega man if i didn't like the story. like the only reason i'm invested in these levels is because i care so much about mega man and dr. light from the cutscenes before i did the first level"
it is possible to like games for just gameplay! since most genres don't have story focus anyway.
We don't have to go outside the universe, though. This is more like saying you love FFVII but skipped all the cutscenes. Like yeah, it's not impossible to think that, but it's just hard to understand. I don't consider the gameplay of XIV to be better than that of any other decent jRPG, it just different and asks different things of you.