>>1825278Me too, hence why I suggested it.
an idea of going through stages via map (or stage select like in disgaea), with a junction stage containing shops, quests, extra stuff to do and typical rpg things.
Level ups, skills, stats, enemies drop items, money, maps could be both fully explorable, left, right, up and down.
Adding RPG elements, just requires a lot more mathy stuff which many people enjoy figuring out.