The main enemy should stay as Nemesis. He is probably what many players liked about the story, maybe have him escape the void in which ‘dead’ gods are sent. Just like the Ganondorf story plots from the Legend series. Or have a desperate village call for his aid when they are attacked or something if that keeps in with the facts of how gods are ‘born’.

But like you said, keep what made the orginal game great. Just expand on it. Introduce more to the temple, have a miracle enhancing room where you can create your own miracles such as combining a water and lightning miracle for a more devasting attack at a price (prayer power). Creature training should be uped a level, when we teach an action have a display of how he learnt and how likely he is to preform it etc. Improved AI. Introduce more gods, have more ‘speaking scenes’ to spice the story up, have god battles in the sky like a creature battle, throwing miracles at each other etc etc.

I love the game just wish they didn’t give up on it so soon.