I played Shadow world as a player (lvl 25 Chaotic lord at the end of the campaign) and I saw some inspiration in the game system of Anima from Rolemaster(open ended roll, multiple bonuses to skills, spell taking more time to cast when stronger ...). but I also found some similarities in the world / background : battles of ancient powers changing the world geography, necromancy being a form of magic that destroys essence somewhat makes me think of the Unlife, Duk'Zarist having a perfect body and resistance to death and with great regeneration somewhat made me think of Lords of Essence, some Shajad/Beryl more or less resemble the Shadow world gods ...
Did some of you think about that? i'd really like to introduce some things from Shadow World (and as we know "something was forgotten", maybe millenia ago Gaïa was called Kulthea ... could be fun/dangerous if the players met Andraax!). maybe add some secret organisations like the Loremasters and navigators ...

The first time I saw the combat table I thought of Rolemaster, and reading the rules only confirmed my suspicions. I believe Anima's a better game than Rolemaster, but it's clearly been inspired by ICE's classic, from the combat to the spell lists. It's a lot more streamlined thankfully. Never used Shadow World, so can't comment on that. My Rolemaster GM was fairly impressed by Anima as well though...

I remember being very annoyed by the ridiculous number of skills you had to develop in RM, which Anima seems to have sorted out. Why did anyone ever think that a separate skill for Sense-Smell was a good idea?

Both games encourage a great deal of player and GM creativity, and they aren't the easiest to explain to players. My campaign starts this week, but the players have spent ages playing around with their characters. Personally I think the creative aspect is the best part of both games, and all of the characters are interesting individuals before we even start play. No basic 1st level fighters in this game.