The first one had a lot to love about it, and a lot to hate about it. First: there is too much repetition, and it could have done without stupid cash quests, and the large sized city (which is mostly empty and only serves to be a large boring place to travel from point a to point b). On the other hand, when you get to story sequences/cutscenes, and boss battles, and art style - there are very few games in existence which equal it.
The gameplay mechanics are excellent
Boss battles are excellent
Anything at all related to story/dialogue/cutscenes is excellent
Overworld map - terrible
Level design - has some good stuff, but mostly VERY repetetive and boring
Generic enemies are mostly uninteresting.
To fix the game, take out the overworld map, just make it all menu based.
Instead of having the levels a big sprawl with lots and lots of enemies running around without any purpose but to fight them, make everything you do have a dialogue/story sequence involved; something to give the game context. Put a lot more thought into enemies, every encounter should have meaning - that is what makes the rest of the game so interesting. It's not difficult to see the weak points and the strong points, it's more obvious in this game than anything I have played before. Lastly, take out all the stupid money quests, they're the same deal as the battle arenas in Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, just time burners.
On a side note, No More Heroes is worth getting for the good parts. Before I pick this game back up again, I am going to look for money cheats.
-Insert Inspiring Quote-
