IGN docked Pokémon for having too much water. The region is literally an ocean.

The math aint mathing, and this time it is wearing floaties.

IGN reviewed Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, remakes of games set in Hoenn, a region whose entire defining geographic personality is 'what if Japan had a swimming pool phase.' The reviewer then identified the central design fact of the setting — water — as a major flaw. This is like reviewing Jaws and writing, 'Too much shark.' It is not criticism. It is a weather report delivered with a score at the end.

Let us inspect the numbers. IGN gave the game a 7.8/10, a score so oddly specific it sounds like it escaped from a spreadsheet during a fire drill. Not 8, not 7.5, but 7.8: the critic's way of saying, 'I have feelings, but I also want them to look audited.' And the reason everyone remembers is not the nuanced discussion of remake structure, pacing, encounter variety, or nostalgia economics. No. The immortal takeaway is two words: too much water.

That phrase became a meme because it compressed an entire style of review into one tiny aquarium. It is the perfect specimen of checklist criticism: count the routes, count the HMs, count the boats, subtract points, publish. The review treats environmental identity like a bug report. Hoenn is supposed to feel coastal, tropical, wet, inconvenient, and sprawling. You can dislike how that plays, sure. But if your deepest diagnosis is that the ocean game has ocean in it, congratulations, you have reviewed the map legend.

This is the danger of numeric authority. A 7.8 implies precision, but the reasoning became famous for sounding like someone penalized Mario Kart for excessive karting. The review is not evil. It is not corrupt. It is just hilariously overconfident in the way only a games review can be: standing on a beach, clipboard in hand, marking the tide as a design failure.

We give this review a 2/10. Too much water, not enough depth.