Minecraft Mod & Modpack Reviews

Every time I make a new minecraft instance-
I open the keybinds, and I remember this mod exists.
I then close the game, and go out of my way to install it.

Please do yourself a favor and write it's name on
your birth certificate/diploma/pet,
so that you don't have to look for it like a fool.

My score is near the middle, as
this mod currently doesn't do much without manual configuration.

It also unfortunately struggles with Curios at the moment...
This means it inherently doesn't work with a decent amount of backpack mods.
It also seems to have problems with picking up multiple items at once, and just overlays blocked slots.

The system itself is a good proof of concept, I hope to see it used in adventure modpacks;
and especially to see the irregular tiling once that's introduced.

Modular Backpacks is the most elegant implementation of backpacks I've seen yet.

It focuses on horizontal progression, adding features to carry with you,
while avoiding the pit-fall of making vanilla features obsolete,
cough sophisticated backpacks cough.

It also, funnily enough, adds the least inventory space, giving you only an extra 9 slots;
with a maximum of 81 slots with all the upgraded pouch modules.

I personally quite appreciate this,
as it helps me steer away from a pure horder life-style that I often succomb to
with backpack mods that give you quadruple chests worth of space.

There is one minor issue, that of you not being able to take off the backpack or any of it's modules without fully emptying both, which can be rather annoying at times, especially with the extra-large pouches which fill up half of your inventory on their own. An option to simply place a backpack on the ground would be greatly appreciated.

There's even cute costumization options!
You can hang trinkets on the buckle! How cute!

As version 4 is still in development as I post this review, I want to make it clear most of my experience is from the earlier versions, primarily version 3, as that's the ones I've played the most with.

ParCool! is a simple ordeal,
you bind some buttons and you get a parkour system comparable to mirror's edge.
You can do everything from your standard wall-runs and safety-rolls,
to fanciful extras like flips, dives, and hiding in hay-bales.

The mod also comes with ziplines and a grappling hook,
with the former letting you get down from towers and mountains in frankly the single most fun way possible- and the latter being an addition of 4.0 which can help with jumping around corners and getting across gaps.

All the issues that come with ParCool amount to minor bruising from slightly odd default keybinds and action delays at the end of animations, such as when trying to vault multiple times in a row, being not a matter of buggyness but rather occasional clunkyness... (My worst offender being that the release-space-to-walljump setting is hidden in the CFG file rather than the included settings menu.)

Other than that, the animations look a bit stiff, but the cross-integration with Epic Fight handles that for the most part. Not to mention that 4.0 is trying to add a resource-pack modifiable animation system, although the documentation for that is not out yet.

Since you read to the end, here's a secret tip.
Try installing RealCamera and ParCool 3,
then set the smoothing on RealCamera really high and unlock the camera rotation.
You will get movement that feels incredibly tactile, although it might make you a little motion sick ;P

Started up this modpack today. The quests seem very well guiding however there is a UI issue where the recipe you are crafting doesn't show up, you can still craft the item however there is no indication if what you are crafting exists which is very confusing since stone tools seem to have been taken out. I hope to see more of what this modpack has in store but I will have to shelf it until it is updated.

Lootr is a great mod at doing what it says it does. Virtually all forms of randomly-generated loot tables (and some preset loot like Elytras) are converted into per-player instanced chests which can be individually retrieved. On paper this is a good idea, but the changes cause a degraded experience for small, closely knit teams (less than 6 or so) due to the abundance of loot and the required gameplay changes.

In small friend groups, the expectation is for all of us to work together as a team. This means a shared base, shared storage, and we go through dungeon content together, because being with friends is fun. With Lootr effectively multiplying the total loot by the number of players, we are always completely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of items we get exploring just a single dungeon. It feels like the expectation of Lootr is for each player to keep their own set of items, but to my knowledge, there aren't any good ways to mark items as your own, and the in-game stacking mechanics discourage separating loot by increasing the amount of storage needed to carry it all. We end up dumping all of the items into a central storage network anyways.

These problems only affect 2+ players, but a questionable change that affects singleplayer is to archaeology: suspicious sand and suspicious gravel. Lootr works on the fact that loot sources will never be destroyed, ever. However, this philosophy completely breaks the challenge of archaeology, which is needing to be deliberate and careful to not destroy the loot blocks but still needing to dig to get to them. Lootr changes the archaeology blocks to be indestructible, which defeats the whole point. After a spot is dug out, other players can simply brush the items out, no risk involved. Almost nobody even engages with archeology in the first place, why completely ruin it just so players don't feel "left out"?

I can't think of any scenarios where Lootr fixed an issue with loot distribution that couldn't be solved with simple communication and just... sharing with your friends. I'm sure this mod is essential for large SMP-style servers, but its inclusion into almost every single modern modpack auto-enabled kinda sucks, especially because the conversion process is irreversible. There should be some kind of disclaimer describing the ripple effects of balancing the game around full instanced loot, because this mod doesn't belong in most of the situations it's being played through.

Enjoyable modpack with a good story and plenty of customizations that make it stand out from other skyblock style packs.

Good modpack, I found it suitable to play in a mixed group of people completely new to minecraft and seasoned gtnh players who enjoy overoptimisation. There's some depth to the progression and many speedrun strats while new players can chill and touch minisheeps, fish and build beautiful farms. Good luck to author with sunlit 2.0. definetely would check it out

Modpack is incomplete, missing dependencies. Attempted to play on only available version on Curseforge.

The mod does what it says on the tin, adding atmospheric sounds like birds to forests, wind in bare terrain and swooshing on the beaches. How and how well it does it subjective but ill point out how what I can from my experience.

This mod is specifically for vibes, add it into a pack if you really are fine with the green noise (thats a term right?). Some tips on modpack (or even just personal usage IG) is that I suggest changing default sound levels especially for stuff like the bird chirps/song as well as wind, the defaults seem to overpower the atmosphere a bit too much that changing the games main sound settings can't really fix.

The mod is generally very compatible, I'm unsure exactly how without looking at source code, it doesn't seem to be all just biome tags. Likely there is some kind of block tags which is very useful since there are many popular mods that may not include proper/complete biome tags. So for example, most leaf blocks seem to trigger bird noises making it work in most forest-y biomes.

Overall, and especially if used correctly can add some much needed green noise to the surface. It makes me wonder how the much harsher contrast in silence of caves makes me more scared of them. (since it feels like that even in vanilla sometimes XD).