I’d read that there was a game called Infiniminer where you would collect perfectly square blocks and use their materials to craft other square blocks and tools.
Minecraft is a clone of that game, and that is the best selling game of all time, selling 63% better than second place, Grand Theft Auto V. A difference of 110,000,000 copies.
So, what other games that were clearly rip-offs of other games, did everything better?
Naughty dog took tomb raider games and elevated them so much with Uncharted that tomb raider was able to have a revival