Since Red Steel was already mentioned, I'll go with Assassin's Creed. The first game had so much potential, but the repetitive missions and poor combat made it little more than a proof of concept, while the second game turned the series into a major franchise.

Only franchise I can think of is Street Fighter. The other games mentioned ITT might not have been as good as the sequels, but they certainly weren’t “poor”. The first Street Fighter was terrible. Someone else mentioned Mario, imho that would also count if you consider it the same franchise.

A few I would mention that kind of fall into the same category as most of the other games here, where the first one wasn’t really “poor” but the sequels were much better in every way:

Twisted Metal 2
Just Cause 2
Saints Row 2

Only Street Fighter comes to mind. Theres a lot of franchies whose first game is the weakest one of the bunch, but that first game was still quite successful, so i dont think the "comeback" narrative applies. SF imo was a mid game that came and went without much notice until SF2 put the franchise in the map.

The first two Sniper Elite games were pretty terrible, but 3 was a huge improvement and a very satisfying tactical action game.

Assassin's Creed I got better reception than it deserved IMO. The game felt incomplete. Assassin's Creed II is a great game though.

Age of Empires I suppose. It doesn't really hold a thought in most people's minds except in Vietnam. Age of Empires 2 however is a beloved game by most fans of the franchise.

I mean if we were just talking about series I like with first entries that I don't, there's The Legend of Zelda and Warcraft (two of my favorite series), but neither one of those were critical failures.

Age of Empires 1 is a terrific game; it may not have blown up to the extent that its successor did popularity wise, but I would absolutely disagree with the notion of it being a "poor first game".

Assassin's Creed though, yeah it was an impressive tech demo at the time but its gameplay is so repetitive and barebones I could only get a few hours in before losing interest.

I actually like AC more than its sequel, honestly gave up on the franchise after playing 2. For its time (2007), AC was pretty good.

Not a lot of games fit the bill for this thread lol.

It's pretty funny seeing Assassin's Creed mentioned here so often, because it was the only kind of fitting example I had in mind. After checking the metascore, I decided not to mention it in order to not set the bar too low to start with, because the game actually had really good sales to go with the pretty good metascore. I think it was the most natural thing for the game to get a sequel. Still, it was quite an improvement the series got after the first game, even if personally I wasn't a fan of the shift to a more lighthearted tone after the first game.

I really liked the more serious tone of the first game compared to the rest of the series and am really disappointed with how lighthearted most of the series after the first game has felt. It still makes me think the first game is one of the only few in the series do to something really magical, even though many of the other games in the series are better in many ways. It wasn't until Unity that AC managed to find a hint of the magic from the first game, but sadly Unity was a broken mess in many ways. Origins also had some of the same magic and a really good game in its own right as well, but it also kind of forgot the roots of the series. I think Mirage also had some hints of the same magic but to a lesser extent. The rest are more or less kinda funfests, for better or and worse. Maybe one day someone will make something like Hitman in a historical context, or at least one can hope so.

I realize this is a hard thread. If a game does really poorly, it's the most natural thing for it to not get a sequel. I think that's also what makes it kinda interesting though. Sadly I don't think there have been a lot of (or any?) nigh unbelievable comebacks mentioned yet, but I think it's been interesting reading anyway.