-74 vs 95 metacritic 

-1.5 million vs 25 million copies sold

-Terrible gameplay and graphics that barely anyone cared about vs Cinematic open world masterpiece that set the benchmark for all open world games that came after.

Personally I'm fine with games of such quality in this thread, as long as they don't take away too much from the better examples. I don't think a game needs terrible reception to belong here; a good comeback story suffices, and the greater the better. Besides, even if there aren't that many better examples, at least I would find it interesting to see what kind of success still merits a sequel. I don't think it's all that common for franchises opening with a metascore of < 80 to get more than just one game, especially if it's not near 80.

Red Dead Revolver was a cool game that I preferred over Redemption. One of the most underrated games I played.

Okay... I just read the rules, and I don't think I experienced anything that fits lol. Not anything I personally played. The closest would be Zone of the Enders 2 and Penguin Adventure.

Yeah ZOE 1 to 2 is a huge upgrade.

Titanfall 2.

First game didn't even have a proper campaign and was a good idea not properly developed, the second is a masterclass in how to make a shooter feels amazing and had a terrific single player adventure.

Killzone by far

I liked zoe1 a lot thou, deff would not classify it as a piss poor game

Mario Bros. to Super Mario Bros. The original Mario Bros. was quite boring, poor and repetitive. Super Mario Bros. changed gaming as we know it.

Just adding to that, GTA1. Not a poor game but it had mixed reviews (

Shantae
Metal Gear
Drakenguard (Nier is a spinoff of this so I feel it counts)