I loved the original, but the "level town level town" thing got pretty stale. You just had to train, train, train, go, cut scene, buy stuff, train, train, train, on and on and on and on 'till you won.
You could make it sort of like that but with more freedom, like making your own character by choosing stats in the beginning, like gang wars, or different classes of characters. Maybe you could start with one character and recruit another in the first town, but give a choice between characters that would effect the story in little ways, but not the overall path that the game takes. Maybe let the player choose whether to be good or evil, or how they interact with different characters, like, if you're a jerk to everyone no one will join your party, and you'll die.
Or you could just stick to your idea, because it will be easy, and it would still be fun.