Pokémon Legends Z-A sells 5.8M in a week—despite the internet roasting its art style

Why this announcement actually matters

When Nintendo said Pokémon Legends Z-A sold 5.8 million copies in its first week, my first reaction was, “Of course it did.” Then I remembered how relentlessly the internet dunked on the game’s art direction-flat building facades, empty streets, the whole “JPEG city” meme-and I did a double take. The discourse said “yikes,” the market said “shut up and take my money.” That disconnect is the real story: Kalos nostalgia, Mega Evolutions, and the Legends formula are powerful enough to overcome a rough-looking city.

• Nintendo reports 5.8 million sold in week one-big momentum despite art direction criticism.
• Returning to Kalos/Illumis (Lumiose City) taps a decade of pent-up “where was Pokémon Z?” energy.
• Mega Evolutions in the wild are a strong hook that actually changes moment-to-moment play.
• Visual shortcuts are glaring in an urban setting; performance and density updates will decide the long tail.

Sales vs sentiment: the Pokémon paradox continues

Let’s separate vibes from facts. Nintendo’s headline number—5.8 million in a week across Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2—is undeniably strong. Is it shipped or sold-through? The press line rarely clarifies, so keep a pinch of salt handy. Nintendo also positions Z-A as surpassing several recent first-month launches. There’s even a comparison floating around to a “Mario Kart World” figure, which is a head-scratcher as a label, but the intention is clear: Z-A opened hot.

This matches a pattern we’ve seen for years. Game Freak can take heat for visuals or performance, yet the brand power, creature design, and mechanical hooks move units anyway. Legends: Arceus proved there’s a big audience for an experimentation-forward Pokémon that isn’t bound to the traditional gym circuit. Z-A doubles down on that appetite with a fan-favorite setting and a headline mechanic people have missed since the X/Y era.

The Kalos factor: Mega Evolutions return, and they matter

Revisiting Illumis—known to most of us as Lumiose City—hits the exact pressure point long-time fans have wanted since Pokémon X/Y skipped a definitive “Z.” Taking a Legends-style lens to a familiar region isn’t just nostalgia bait; it lets Game Freak remix the timeline and mechanics without the baggage of a mainline structure. Setting it in a near-future Illumis where wild Pokémon can Mega Evolve without warning is an actual gameplay premise, not just lore dressing. It changes how you scout, prepare, and route through the city. If you’ve ever had a random encounter go nuclear because a mon popped a Mega mid-fight, you know that jolt of respect the game demands.

This is what caught my attention. Legends works best when the world fights back—when traversal, scouting, and risk management matter. A city full of unpredictable power spikes is a smart way to transpose what made Hisui tense into a dense, vertical space. If Z-A’s systems lean into that (patrols, evacuations, tools that help de-escalate Megas), there’s substance under the sales spike.

The art direction debate—and why it’s louder in a city

The criticism isn’t coming out of nowhere. Players aren’t wrong to call out flat facades that look like painted boxes and streets that feel way too empty for a Paris-inspired metropolis. In the wilderness, you can get away with sparse geometry—trees and hills hide compromise. In a city, the lack of crowd density and readable detail breaks immersion immediately. Legends: Arceus skirted this with mood and scale; Z-A’s urban canvas exposes every shortcut.

Part of this is a classic cross-gen headache. Shipping on both Switch and Switch 2 means the baseline still has to run on aging hardware, and those constraints ripple into asset density and simulation complexity. The question is what the Switch 2 version does to earn its keep. Higher resolution and steadier frame rate are table stakes. What matters is whether we see meaningful upgrades—denser crowds, better lighting, more interactive city props—that make Illumis feel alive. If the “enhanced” version is just cleaner edges on the same empty streets, expect the criticism to stick.

What gamers should watch next

• Post-launch patches: Does Game Freak add crowd density, improve textures, or tweak streaming to reduce pop-in? A city needs bustle.
• Performance parity: How big is the gap between base Switch and Switch 2? If the new hardware can’t push liveliness, that’s a missed opportunity.
• Mechanical depth: Do wild Mega encounters evolve beyond jump scares into strategic scenarios with tools and city systems (alarms, safe zones, NPC roles)?
• Endgame loop: Legends lives or dies by quests, hunts, and research tasks that stay fresh. A strong endgame will outlast the memes.

If you bounced off the trailers because the streets looked like a render test, that’s fair. But if you loved Arceus’s “survey and survive” loop and have a soft spot for Kalos, Z-A is tapping into something potent. The sales prove that. Now it’s on Game Freak to back the hype with updates that make Illumis feel like the city we imagined when X/Y first showed those café-lined boulevards.

TL;DR

Pokémon Legends Z-A sold 5.8M in a week because Kalos nostalgia and wild Mega Evolutions are compelling—even if Illumis currently looks too bare. If post-launch updates boost city density and the Switch 2 version delivers meaningful upgrades, Z-A could turn a strong launch into real staying power.