What game (or games) do you think represents the greatest recovery/improvement for a series that had stumbled, and why?

(Don't just list a game, elaborate!)

Sonic Mania

Sonic floundered in 3D for decades until some fans came together and finally made a good Sonic game, with the blessing of Sega.

I actually don't think I can contribute from memory, although I think FFVIIR is a very high improvement over FFXV and RE7 is a world difference to RE6 (perhaps that would count)... what I would like to see is Syphon Filter and Soul Reaver sequels, remakes, reboots.

Since you asked to elaborate, RE7 was a return to the roots of RE, a franchise I loved from 1-3 and Code but lost interest with 4 and 5 only made it worse with 6 totally fucking everything even with Zombies returning. It was a franchise I wanted to recover so badly and I got attended with not only 7 but the remakes (even the remaster of 1 is quite good if I ignore the tank combat and think I'm playing on PS1).

Maybe Fire Emblem Awakening? I don't think there was a problem with the quality of Fire Emblem games, but in terms of sales, the franchise was on its last legs and now the most recent entry will likely pass 3 million which is pretty damn big for an SRPG series.

From Nintendo's side, easily Fire Emblem.

Fire Emblem was a dying franchise, mostly because of it's stuborness to evolve and adapt new mechanics to make it's games better than just good. It's thanks to the threat of death that the developers said "what the hell" and actually decided to take a chance and do something they wanted, instead of being held back by what the old fans expected out of the franchise.

From Square(Recent years): Easily FF 7 Remake. FF 7 R was the first time since FF X, and maybe even FF XII, that a FF game felt this perfect. FF XIII and FF XV really manage to tarnish the brand name, but I feel like FF 7 R managed to clean it up alot, and probably restore faith in the franchise.

Sony has always been weak with it's first party offerings until the 7th gen, given a few exceptions. So most of it's beloved franchises never really fell from grace.Yet, at least.

MS is hopefully in the path to redemption because they are a huge dissapointment first party wise.

RE 7 basically brought the RE franchise back to life.

Megaman 11 also almost single handedly revived the franchise. You could say that the collections did that, but for me those collections only showed Capcom the lingering and growing interest in the IP. Megaman 11 basically solidified that claim by being a new entry that is, at the moment, the third best selling entry in said franchise.

There is probably alot more, but I'm too tired to think about that now.

At the pace it is selling, it's probably going to pass 4 million.

Probably, but I like to be conservative.  Hopefully you're right about Mega Man 11, but I have doubts that Capcom will actually do anything with the franchise.  I've gotten my hopes up and been burned before.  

Sorry for expecting good level design, strategy and interesting characters out of Awakening.

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On topic, I think DMC3, after how bad 2 was, picking itself up so perfectly and elevating the entire genre with it is one of my favorite examples.

If sales (and critical acclaim) are anything to go by, your opinion is certainly in the minority.

Nothing against you, just stating facts.

If fairly certain that Capcom( Kazuhiro, the current series producer, said this), that a new game is in the works. He said that back in september of last year.

Megaman 11 currently sits at 1.2 million units. For a franchise that just came back from the dead, and with an incredibly low budget, that an outstanding performance.

Plus they haven't stopped releasing new megaman collections. It's been safe to say, for more than a year now, that Megaman is back.

And probably the next game is X9.