This is clearly a case of sour grapes by Cory Barlog.  As has been pointed out already, Mario games are about excellence in fun and craftsmanship of sequence more than story.  That said, I will admit that the story behind Mario games are barebones at best.  Still, that makes them no less enjoyable.  Barlog did concede this - though somewhat begrudgingly.

 On the other hand, having played (and thoroughly enjoyed God of War) I find its story to be rather vapid as well - though cliche or trite may be better terms.  Thus, I find Barlog's comments somewhat hippocritical.  In the end, there are few videogames that have truely compelling (to the point of being artistic) stories, but gaming is still my hobby of choice.

One last thing ... curious that "there is (sic) NO Wii games with GOOD story or just a few (sic)."  Crazzyman, exaggerate much?  While the statement may at heart be true, that phenomenon is not exclusive to the Wii.  Also, speaking in such absolutes is rarely wise.   

"I didn't want to get into an argument. Cory Barlog did make a valid point and it's sad that many people are choosing to attack him rather than admitting that he's actually right."

The "validity" of the point is at best a matter of opinion. I have personally met several adults who thought Mario Galaxy reminded them of "The Little Prince" which is well-read and well-loved, as well as a finely crafted story that adults enjoy. Simply focusing on the ending is cherry-pickingly short sighted, especially when the source of the accusation's storytelling techniques can be constructed by any high-school student assigned Edith Hamilton's mythology and thrown in detention.

Legend, while Nintendo may still be "stuck in the eighties" as far as plot goes, at least it's the 1980's, and not 80 B.C. For him to praise the game's creativity and then give it any criticism in regards to it's basic concept is flawed. To say all Mario platformers are equivalent simply because the beginning and the end result is the same is totally omitting that crucial middle part where they are different, which is to say, romping through the Mushroom Kingdom is different from going through Subcon (Mario), having a vacation interrupted on dinosaur Island (Mario World), Exploring the different paintings of the Princess's castle, having a vacation interrupted on a tropical island, and being jettisoned through space.

When you piece together the actual THINGS YOU DO in these Mario games, it makes for a heroic story whose roots are in the universal fairy tales that we all tell our children. There is no need to stop the game and tell the player what's going on. He/She already knows. There is no need for "mystery" or "double-crosses" and whatever other tired plot devices get thrown in these days.

The problem for Mr. Barlog is that he has seen the creativity abound in Mario Galaxy and instead of learning from it and applying principles to future games, he holds it at arms length and criticizes the story. Much has been said of Nintendo designers viewing competitor's games and from what little they pry loose from those designers lips is that they get heavily inspired by simply what they see, and it doesn't even stop at other games. Miyamoto and Eiji Aunoma (Other Zelda guy) have sourced movies like Amelie as inspirational contributions to Wind Waker, such as simply using model position and facial expression to bring a story forward instead of simply writing what the characters have to say and getting some out-of-work voice actor to punch through lines.

This internet age we live in brings all the worst out in some people, and stealth-trolling as a result of sour grapes can be an indicator of bitterness. The fact is he seems jealous of Mario Galaxy's success, despite his apparent praising of it. This is no off-the-cuff remark that you might get from a guy who is coming out of a movie. Everything put on the internet, especially from official sources takes careful crafting. This is not an even-handed mostly positive criticism he posted as much as trying to convince his fans or even himself that something must be wrong with Mario Galaxy. Especially this part:

"Maybe that is just me though, since almost every other designer I talk to thinks this game is the second coming."

Who said that, other than Nintendo fans? Did the game get most of the GOTY awards? I thought Bioshock did. This is a typical Jack Chick offense, the non-existent straw man. Create a false characterization of somebody that is easy to knock down (a straw man, as it were) and knock that straw man down. IT's kind of tasteless.

And why does he think anybody cares about his opinion. His market presence is quite small. Maybe he just wasted to have his name and Mario Galaxy in the same sentence. I dunno.

 I was going to write some (not really) funny responses to each of those questions, but instead decided to draw attention to something.  

Sneaking into the Soviet Union? Jumping across rooftops to kill people? Whatever you do in it? Yeah I can do all that to save a damn princess because that sounds like fun. Provided I’m not beaten over the head with lofty cut scenes at every step, or forced to listen excessive dribble from comic book rejects, I’m keen with it. Provided they make that stuff fun to do. 

Nintendo approaches game design very differently than many other companies which is why their games so often are so revolutionary and have such simple stories ...

Nintendo starts where other companies finish by focusing on the unique and interesting gameplay elements and then working their way backwards towards the story line; Mario Galaxy was developed first by figuring out that it is fun to platform on planetoids of various sizes, to play around with gravity, and to use a wide variety of special powers (Bee Suit Mario, etc.) and then figuring out how Mario was going to be put into an environment which has these things.

Nintendo is also very restricted in what they can do being that they have spent over 20 years defining characters and now everyone has expectations about what they want; most series that have been around for as long have just as shallow of characters, and as just as "vapid" of storylines (yes, Metal Gear included). There is a definite benefit of being able to start a new series today, without any preconceived notions of what the characters are supposed to be like or how the story should be told, if you want to produce a good story in game ...

Addendum: This is not to say storytelling has no place in gaming. It depends entirely upon the game. Ceratinly KOTOR would have been nothing without its story, but in no way would imposing a tale on PacMan improve on the gaming experience.

To pick 3 games of the same genre, Half Life benefitted immensely from it's story. Goldeneye used a nominal plot to provide challenging goals, but otherwise the story was superfluous. Doom had the most minimal Mario-level story and it too was a blast to play. Ironically, I think Doom 3 suffered when it utilized a storyline, which took away from the frantic action the series was known for.

Nice first post, welcome to VGChartz DeguelloNWR.

 Actually mario has changed professions a lot, he's been a doctor

And while there has been more Mario's there have been fewer main story mario's in the last few years then there have been God Of war games, and GOW has the same story, Kratos gets angry and tries to kill greek myth characters like Ares and Zeus..again, its so boring, i'm just telling them how a little work on the story could pay off so much

he has a good point. Maybe that's why I hated all mario games since M64. Honestly, I'd atleast want to know what Bowser's plan is for the kingdom and why he did it. At least give me that. Honestly my favorite Mario game will always be Mario RPG: ltss because of the story and good story too.

@shio - ill give you that Deus Ex has a good story but seriously GOW has a top notch story too. But still no game holds a candle to Half-Life's story telling except the Final Fantasy Series or Golden Sun.

He's correct that this is his opinion. I've stated repeatedly that I do not like story in games, and what he sees as a negative I see as a positive. The inspid and heavy handed story in games like Gears of War and God of War is precisely why I dislike those games so strongly.

It's just an opinion, Legend. It would be like docking God of War for being an exclusively single player game. There are lots of people who almost never play single player games anymore (such as me) and many others who believe that single player games are an aberration and will die off, such as Raph Koster (and also me, again).

But the preference for multiplayer is clearly just an opinion -- other people specficially avoid multiplayer experiences and focus entirely on single player. I'm quite sure people would bitch to high heaven if some major magazine began heavily docking games for not being near-exclusively or exclusively multiplayer; games like God of War, Final Fantasy, Super Mario, Bioshock, Mass Effect and others wouldn't be capable of more than an "pretty good" 8.0 or something along those lines. Why would it be okay to do that for story-driven games? Because I'm obviously not alone in disliking story in my games.

Best first post ever. However, I should point out that quite a few GOTY awards have gone to SMG.  This includes major sites like Gametrailers and Gamespot (although I don't like Gamespot). It's also the second best rated game of all time on gamerankings.com, so there is really no debate that critically it's a roaring success.  I'm really just quoting you to bump you to the second page though.