Wow, nothing will ever top that epic Wonder Boy / Adventure Island post; glad I checked this out.
In the spirit of the thread, I do have an entry to submit.
Stellar 7 (Battlezone inspired game) which came out originally on 8 bit systems (I played it on the Apple 2 back in the day). It was then remade for the Amiga/PC and maybe MACOS under the same name but with enhancements (end of level boss, cut scenes). It was then later released with more spit and polish for the 3DO (Stellar 7: Draxon’s Revenge), which is my favorite version of this game
And then fans were greeted with the sequel Nova 9: the return of Gir Draxon, again for the Amiga/PC/Mac
In both cases, the number references to the “star systems” contained within the game (IE: levels, so Stellar 7 has 7 levels, Nova 9 has 9).
Note: Apparently Arcticfox falls within the same series, therefore is seen as a sequel to Stellar 7. Skyfox and Skyfox II: the Cygnus conflict are part of the same series as Arcticfox yet are not referenced as part of the Stellar 7 series. Ouch
The Stellar 7 and Nova 9 games were developed by one of my favorite devs: Dynamix, who were responsible for many titles that breached many different genres. Classics like “Red Baron” and A10 Tank Killer (flight Sims), “Abrams Battle Tank” (tank sim), “Rise of the Dragon”, “Heart of China” (adventure), The Incredible Machine (puzzle), “Caveman ughlympics” (track and field type of game). I miss them, especially their flight sims and the adventure games where they showed that cinematically speaking, they were ahead of their time