AoW's underground, with its reduced vision mechanic, works well. The Shadow Realm with its extremely low movecost terrain and Shadow Sickness seems much more dubious.

Would the game be better if Shadow Sickness didn't exist? I could probably mod it out of the game by simply making it 'masked' by the Walking, Swimming, Floating and Flying abilities.

As for the low movecost, that's tied to the terrain, not the map layer. Only the somewhat irritating sound modulation is something i don't know how to alter.

*shrug* It's a thing. As long as the map maker accounted for it, then I don't really see the problem.

Speaking of which, Shadow Sickness affects the Shadow Realm map layer, regardless of terrain there.

It is funny when mapmakers put Shadow Lands on a surface or underground map. Makes for some crazy, fast movement across the world.

On the other hand, putting normal forests and mountains on the Shadow map is super annoying. You expect to be moving on rocket skates down / over / up there.

I'm glad they didn't make a Sky level or some other goofy thing with beanstalks between the surface and the sky. I bet that idea was considered and thrown in the rubbish.

Regarding good or bad of the game mechanic... I'm with Book. It is what it is. You want a third level, we're gonna give it to you in an unexpected manner. Boom! At least it's not in 3D. :)

Excuse me while I clean up where I sprayed my drink. XD