This idea is strongly focused around the (hopefully somewhat novel, though I'm not as well-read as I sometimes appear) plot, below:
In the fantasy world of Miret-Nida, the creators left behind an edict that all "caretaker deities" (of infinitely lesser power to the creators) be selected to guide and assist mortalkind with their ventures. Although blessed with fantastic power, well beyond human understanding, they are themselves mortal and eventually perish after several thousand years or through continuous, sheer exhaustion of their powers - usually a combination of both.
This is understood by all living creatures of the world, as is the prophecy that all Gods must be replaced upon death by a mortal of their choosing. Resenting that the choice of godhood is out of their hands, several evil elements plan in secret to usurp the transfer of godly power between the dying god and chosen vessel and use that channelled power to choose their own deity. These cults spring up as soon as a God is chosen and continually build their membership through the eras as their patron God edges closer to their demise. This is where you come in.
You are (kind of obviously, I suppose) the next to receive the powers of the Sun God, who is currently a quick-witted but kindly old man who has visited you since you were a child and is generally beloved among his subjects. A man that you treat almost as a grandfather. His true nature had been concealed from you until he eventually dies saving a grand city (one entirely devoted to the Sun God) and their just ruler from a mighty evil armada (one united with the God of Storms), part of an ongoing war that is the backdrop of the adventure. Despite being told of your immediate boost in power and ascension to Godhood, you instead receive a maddening burst of information and images which just as quickly disappears. It is enough to warn you about a mysterious cult and a group of assassins that are on their way to kill you in your sleep, and so you make preparations and escape your home. You head to the above big city for answers.
Now, the game itself: I'm sort of pitching it as an Action/Adventure with elements of Point & Click and RPG-esque power-gaining. You are a regular citizen of the world with no acquired martial training (though you are eventually - and quickly - taught how to use a sword) but you do have a subdued amount of divine power that the cult (your antagonists throughout the game) could not siphon from you in time. This small amount of godly power increases upon the death of cult members and the acquisition of artifacts on their persons. You discover that your power, being too much for any of the priests of the cult to handle alone (being unworthy as they are) have been channeled instead into solid gold objects - gold being the preferred conductor of sun energy. Occasionally, you'll fight monstrous bosses created through sun energy-enriched objects (such as a golden tiger statuette coming to life), and defeating them will rechannel the power used to create them into yourself giving you a huge boost.
Initially, all you have are visions which are small bursts of your godlike omniscience acting on you. Not only can you effectively predict the future with these, but they can also give you entire lessons and techniques of any kind of discipline almost instantaneously. This comes in useful during parts of the game where you suddenly need to know how to fight effectively hand-to-hand or drive a chariot, either of which would be difficult enough without trained assassins on your tail. You'll also acquire RPG-like stats, including the ubiquitous Health Points, Strength and Speed stats which raise from "regular human" to "trained human" to "superhuman" and beyond as you gain in power.
Throughout the game, you'll have your spiritual advisor (that is to say, a spirit that advises you) in the form of the previous Sun God to assist you with Godlike duties and powers and will also help somewhat in investigating where your powers went. He'll also provide much of the humor to the plot. Like a wacky ex-God ghost sidekick advisor guy. Maybe.
I'm also hoping to incorporate some Dragon Lair/Shenmue/Fahrenheit-like fast button modes for the times when you need to deftly avoid attempts on your life by various agents of the cult, using a sort of slow-motion "omniscience mode" as you predict or calculate sword attacks, arrow trajectories, precarious furnishings about to hit you (such as columns falling on you) and other disasters while you either escape or take down your pursuers.
For the overall visual style, I want to go for a sort of "Aztec at-the-peak-of-its-civilisation" feel to match all the Sun God and golden treasures narrative elements. The allusions to the enemy fleet being Spanish Conquistadors, only assisted by divine storms instead of modern technology (for the 1500s anyway), could work out pretty well too. However the setting may be moved around if the project ever becomes too much like Fahrenheit/The Indigo Prophecy (since that also used Mayan mythology). It is a fantasy world, so it wouldn't be a stretch have an Aztec city full of warriors with styles from medival England or ancient feudal Japan (since the cult assassins may end up using both). Thank gods for fantasy universes where nothing needs to be geographically logical.
