Unbalanced, ugly and weird… in the best ways

Lycanites Mobs started all the way back in Minecraft 1.6, a time when 50000 downloads was considered a big achievement for a modpack. Despite that, it owes most of its popularity and downloads to RLCraft. And for a good reason, since Lycanites exemplifies the unfair, unbalanced and downright bizarre ethos of RLCraft. Yet for all its disadvantages, it has many interesting points.

Lycanites Mobs earned its controversial reputation for good reasons. Overly powerful monsters spawn whenever the player takes any sort of action. Hell, even going to sleep will get you attacked by the Grim Reaper himself. The models are ugly and clashing with the entire style of Minecraft. It’s as if the dev thought he was modding Doom, instead of Minecraft. And the equipment in that mod makes the game swing from nightmarishly difficult to pathetically easy. The Summoning Staff alone can cheese entire dungeons’ worth of enemies, and is a favourite of every Minecraft streamer.

But a skilled modder can turn those downsides into upsides. Lycanite, thankfully, created an extensive config for each mechanic and monster. With a little knowledge of modding, it’s possible to hand-craft the spawning patterns for each monster, as well as the parts that it would drop upon death. It’s thanks to those configs, that RLCraft has such a high probability of a deadly Ent spawning when the player breaks the first tree. But it’s also possible to decrease the spawn chances and ease a player’s burden.
The monsters themselves are creative, if a little annoying. Geonachs that spawn from breaking ores are vulnerable to pickaxes, sea-dwelling Lacedons slow players and force them to sink, while the desert Crusk attacks from the underground. They all spawn in completely different environments, forcing the player to adapt their tactics depending on where they are. And when all fails, it’s satisfying to watch a Twitch streamer struggle against a horde of Imps.
Each monster even has at least one ’shiny’ variation with higher stats and better drops. This shows the dev’s sheer dedication to the mod. Players that find the low-poly style of Lycanites unpalatable can download the Lycanites Redux resource pack, which turns every mob model there into a more Minecraft-like style.

Lycanites Mobs is an old mod, the legacy of which continues to this day. Without it, RLCraft wouldn’t have had the sheer number of players rage-quitting and re-downloading it, and it wouldn’t have had the sheer number of YouTubers attempting to play it. But I would recommend you a few other modpacks, which use Lycanites Mobs arguably to a better extent.

Blood N Bones - essentially RLCraft, but old-school, all the way from 1.6.4. It’s also quite frustrating, but worth playing for those who want to understand the modding environment back then. May require downloading Java 7, as a glitch in Forge prevents newer versions of Java from working.

Fixxitt412 100 Days Mage - a very light-weight modpack that combines Ars Magica 2 and Lycanites Mobs. The mobs spawn quite often, but the early game is closer to vanilla, giving a fighting chance to the player. Fixxit412 made an interesting YouTube series about it.

Horrors of the Deep - you spawn on an ocean platform, with only a shotgun to fight against terrible creatures. Early game is a bit frustrating, but shooting down sea monsters with a shotgun feels so satisfying.