Have you ever felt lifted up by a franchise?

[crux]

Contrary to Frizz.Meister's topic, this is about franchises that started out slow and gained momentum, or perhaps those that fell from grace but later redeemed themselves. What were the series that not only improved, but improved in such a way as to make their previous efforts insubstantial?

I thought of this after reading about Sengoku 3 (recommended by the recent Beat 'em Up 101 article). Sengoku 1 and 2 are completely mediocre, but before SNK's bankruptcy in 2001, they sent many of their franchises to small development teams. Sengoku went to Noise Factory and Sengoku 3 ended up surpassing the previous two titles in every single capacity.

There are a myriad of examples of series that got better over time, but not as many totally eclipsed their original releases. Grand Theft Auto is a good example of a series that didn't hit its stride until the third game, completely changing the series and creating a new genre in the process. Street Fighter II doesn't even belong in the same sentence as the first game.

What else?

[sevin0seven]

NBA 2K Series from the Dreamcast to Next Gen Consoles. It really improves dramatically how realism of this b-ball game is. Sorry NBA Live/Elite....but at least you tried = P

and i know someone here will say Madden.

[noiseredux]

Street Fighter --> Street Fighter II

[Tullaian]

I felt that Metroid Prime 2 was a fall from grace after how awesome Prime 1 was but I felt they redeemed themselves with Prime 3.

[ZeroAX]

Final Fantasy?

Assasin's Creed for sure. 2 much better than 1.

[ProfessorK]

Every Transformers game has been destroyed by War for Cybertron. It's not really a series of games, but more of a license that was finally done correctly.

[Gnashvar]

The Legend of Zelda series keeps getting better as time passes by. Same with Smash Brothers and Mario Kart.

[slowslow325]

Mega Man. Mega Man 9 and 10 were great, even after all the crap they pulled with the other games.

Oh, and Madden!

[weasels]

Every Transformers game has been destroyed by War for Cybertron. It's not really a series of games, but more of a license that was finally done correctly.

I agree with this 100%.

also The front mission series. i felt that it took a drop with FM4, and then i got to play FM5 and all was redeemed.

[ZeroAX]

Every Transformers game has been destroyed by War for Cybertron. It's not really a series of games, but more of a license that was finally done correctly.

Haven't played Transformers Armada on the PS2 I see