Mediocre exploration of a cool concept

The ancient city portal is a matter of great discussion in the minecraft community - and this mod seeks to show us what lies beyond it with the Otherside.

This new dimension explores the home of the sculk, and tries to create an atmosphere on a similar level as the Vanilla Nether - dreary, creepy and hostile.

The mod is cool in concept, but is wasted potential. It suffers from illogical progression - To access the portal we need to kill a warden, and said warden is actually stronger than anything in the otherside?
The mod features a powerful boss in its own right, the stalker. The boss can be found in a hidden structure in the Otherside, but can also just randomly spawn from pots in the ancient city? It can be used to make one of two items which are of great importance - an armored elytra.
So there's really only one more item to get from this mod. What's the reward for navigating this desolate sculk wasteland? A transmitter which allows you to access a storage container from anywhere. Pretty lame, in my opinion.

The dimension itself also is just a bit mundane - vast swathes of land without much to do, only one or two interesting natural phenomena - and a variety of building blocks being the main allure. It suffers from a lack of content, and is comparable to pre 1.16 nether.