Capcom has also said things like they were making Mega Man Legends 3.  I've been hurt by them before.  I'll believe it when I see it.

Zelda: Breath of the Wild It brought back the open-endedness of the original game, where you would get lost in the world and stumble upon new locations and secrets without your hand being held the whole time. The sense of exploration was truly amazing for a game in the 80s, and BOTW achieves that for modern gaming all over again. And it was about damn time!

Sonic Mania Pure 16 bits classic greatness. Sonic 3 & Knuckles is arguably the last truly amazing Sonic game. With the 3D titles being hit or miss, and all having their fair share of less than stellar elements. Sonic Mania remedies to that by further building upon the foundation of the 16 bits titles. Level design could have been a little more focused, but that's a small nitpick for what is a truly amazing follow up to Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

Resident Evil VII It brought back the feeling of isolation, careful item management, and got rid of the Hollywood action movie elements that made the survival aspect take a back seat in the franchise's recent games.

Super Mario 3D World Brought back concise, cleverly crafted levels, giving the game a SMB 3 vibe, which I greatly enjoyed.

Final Fantasy VII Remake They finally found a battle system that caters to fans of the older games as well as more recent fans. The game also has pristine production value, is definitely more focused than the last few main games (XIII and XV, mostly), and hits the emotional chords like the games used to. For once in a long while, an FF game does a lot more right than wrong and executes most of its ideas exceptionally well. Here's hoping Part 2 won't disappoint.

Hopefully Paper Mario: The Origami King will bring back the brilliance found in TTYD.  The trailer certainly hints at it having its fair share of clever and fun ideas.  And speaking of which... Where the hell is TTYD on Switch? Not making a remaster or even a simple re-release of that game for the console is a crime. They can’t have this gem be forever lost and stuck to the 6th gen.

To be fair, while 3D Sonic has been very hit or miss, 2D Sonic has always been consistently good to great. Outside of the classic Genesis/Mega Drive originals, we’ve had the Sonic Advance trilogy, the Sonic Rush games, Colors DS, even the 3DS Boom games were decent enough. 

So even when the 3D games have had their ups and downs and all arounds, they always had the 2D games to fall back on as the unsung heroes of the franchise.

Crash N Sane Trilogy. I know it's a Remake but I feel like it showed that straying too far from the original gameplay had hurt the series. Going back to the series roots helped breath life into what was thought to be a dead franchise.

While the Crash of the Titans games were ok on their own, they were so radically different from the originals that they felt like they were from a different franchise.

In the future I would hope the developers build upon what was established in the original trilogy and keep going from there.

Breath of the Wild, for adding back the Assassin's Creed Towers that were so beloved in the original game!

Raiden IV after Raiden III

Ys VI after the lackluster Ys 5

DMC3 after DMC2

DMC5 after the trash that was DmC

Mortal Kombat 9 after MK vs DC

Wolfenstein Old Blood after many awful games

Valkria Chronicles 4 after VC Revolution

Dues Ex Human Revolution after the crap that came out on PS2

Trials of Mana remake after that abysmal SoM remake

Assault Suit Leynos PS4 remake was much better than a pretty poor remake of Valken (Cybernator SNES) on PS2

KOF XIII after the pretty lousy KOF12

Strider 2 on PS1 after the abysmal US Gold Stider II on Genesis

I wanted to say GoW 2018 but then I rememberd that ascension was actually pretty good, only the formula was getting a bit stale. So yeah, I am going with RE7. It singlehandedly saved the franchise.

Mortal Kombat 9. Not only was it a return to form after Midway went bankrupt, but the series sells better than Street Fighter does not.

Street Fighter IV, except that SFV was a huge stumble.

Valkyria Chronicles 4 after a handheld game and a poorly conceived spinoff. Though I heard 3 was great.

Breath of the Wild, just for bringing back a huge explorable overworld after so many years of skimpy overworlds.. Plus it's a sales beast. First time a Zelda title has sold over 15 million units on its first run. Skyward Sword sold around 3 million.

And although I know I might get dragged for this, I'm really enjoying the hell out of Pokemon Sword, with my wife playing Shield. Haven't had that much fun with Pokemon since Red/Blue, and she says the same.

If we count the games from all three companies as one meta-series, then Xenoblade Chronicles was a massive improvement over Xenosaga and brought the series back up to the standards of Xenogears, maybe even exceeded it.

Dragon Quest XI after the DS-only Dragon Quest IX and the online-only Dragon Quest X. I was worried that 8 would be the last traditional Dragon Quest, especially after 9 sold so well.

My vote would be for GOW 2018 {like hunter_alien}. For me personally it would be the best return to form as I found GOW:A to be tedious and predictable and the storyline to be a level down.

Probably not the best example for the thread question because I dont‘t think many people would claim the franchise was out of form before this game arrived (actually the 2D games of the series created one of the most influential subgenres in gaming history, especially when you look at modern indie games), but

Metroid Prime