Minecraft Mod & Modpack Reviews

Huge what Iris has accomplished over the time that I've used it. Shaders have been an integral part of what I love about Minecraft, and without Iris we'd probably still be using Optifine! This mod enables the usage of shaders without too much bloat, and it does a great job at it!

I haven't had any stability issues personally. It's just been a perfect mod for my usage!

Here's a mod I can't play Minecraft without! Gives borderless windowed support to most Minecraft versions! This mod absolutely saves Minecraft for me and I owe it so much praise 🙏

The basis of the pack was incredible! And I had a lot of enjoyment with playing it during the early access period. The problem is that the team that developed the pack seem to care more about the concept of balance rather than the fun factor. Recipes got changed so much during early access and it became a real pain to craft stuff. Not to mention that the pack itself feels like a bit of an afterthought and incorporates tech in a bit of a rough and incomplete way.

There was a lot of automation missing when I last played, especially in regards to the cooking pot for Cobblemon items, and while the custom content was sick, it was way too difficult to craft a lot of stuff. I did have fun playing though and did complete it, although this was on an earlier version so the pack could really suck now.

Project Architect 2 is, genuinely, my favorite modpack in ALL OF MINECRAFT! This is coming from someone who has been playing Minecraft since Beta 1.7.3 and played modded Minecraft during the era of Tekkit Classic. This ISN'T the OBJECTIVELY BEST modpack, it's just my favorite!

Project Architect 2 gives the player ABSOLUTE control over ProjectE and challenges them to break the game by generating massive quantities of items to complete quests within a comprehensive guide.

This review is long, so I'm providing a quick tl;dr here for the average gamer who just wants a quick rundown.

• If you love tech/magic automation and ProjectE, PLAY THIS!
• If you don't know what ProjectE is, YOU SHOULD STILL PLAY THIS! And I'm jealous because my first time with ProjectE (Equivalent Exchange 2 back in my day) was magical!
• If you like a guided experience and challenges, PLAY THIS!
• If you hate any of the mods in this pack, YOU WILL BE FORCED TO PLAY WITH THEM. There are no alternative paths.
• If you love the challenge of combat, YOU MAY BE DISAPPOINTED. You get god-tier armor and weapons relatively quickly and the main focus of this pack is AUTOMATION. You will not be very challenged from a combat perspective whatsoever.
• If you hate automation or tech, DO NOT PLAY THIS!

With that out of the way, here's my review:

If you haven't played with the mod ProjectE I need to lay out the premise. ProjectE, at its core, incorporates the idea of items being converted into energy and becoming another item. Take, for example, dirt and diamonds. What if you could take dirt and turn it into a diamond? Dirt has an "energy value" of 1, and diamonds have an "energy value" of 8192. This means, with the help of a Transmutation Table, you could turn 8192 dirt into 1 diamond. This "energy value" is known as EMC. Players can only convert energy into items that have already been learned. You couldn't manifest a diamond if you've never seen one! Sounds OP, right? Not with Project Architect 2!

This pack grabs ProjectE by the collar and demands that it be thoroughly whipped into a well-oiled machine of EMC production. As the player, you are tasked with utilizing a variety of tech mods alongside ProjectE to accomplish various automation tasks.

Players start with an Transmutation Table from ProjectE and continue to build up their EMC knowledge from there! The quests guide players starting fresh and carefully leads them along the path to EMC mastery. This includes automating EMC generation using a variety of logistics/tech/magic mods! These mods are supported by Project Expansion; a mod that expands upon ProjectE and adds even MORE tiers of matter and tech compatibility! My favorite thing to do in Project Expansion was connect my entire Applied Energistics 2 system to my trasmutation knowledge! This means that if an item had EMC and was in my system, I could freely extract that item from inside of AE2; automatically spending EMC for me!

Once mastered, the quests push your game to its absolute limit by having you compress a variety of blocks up to 9X (that's over 387 million blocks compressed into one!) to complete "Under Pressure", hunting various mobs thousands of times to complete "The Wild Hunt", and crafting RIDICULOUS post-creative items to complete "Beyond Creative".

I had a TON of fun with this pack and having ProjectE integrate with so many of my favorite mods was an absolute dream! I always found that ProjectE was a difficult mod to integrate within a modpack because of how overpowered it is. The incredible thing about this modpack is that it acknowledges this and creates challenges that respect the power of ProjectE. I spent 476 hours playing this pack and at no point did I feel that quest progression was "too easy" towards the end. The pack consistently asks the question "How far can you push ProjectE before it breaks?"

Speaking of breaking, let's talk about the pack's performance grade. It gets BAD, but that's to be expected when you're working with automation producing this much stuff! The performance is really up to how the player is running machines. Layouts can be optimized, setups can be condensed, and mods can be installed (such as Observable) that can tell you exactly what machines are using up the most ticks. A big example was the Pipez mod, which while using the Creative Pipe Upgrade, would tank the server's performance with certain machines. Adjusting your setup to optimize these workflows is part of the fun in my opinion, but is not for everyone.

This pack was created by youtuber ChosenArchitect and he has an entire playthrough of this pack on his channel! If you ever find yourself questioning how to complete a quest, I would recommend finding the video associated with that challenge and following along.

All in all, this is my favorite pack of all time and I wouldn't be doing it justice if I didn't write a lengthy review for it. I loved playing it and I learned so many mods and automation tips from my experience playing. I highly recommend it 5 OUT OF 5 STARS!

Fantastic modpack!! Has that signature FTB charm, and I've never been so engaged with a Stoneblock modpack!! So much jam-packed content and unique mechanics for getting valuable items. The world engine introduces a crafting mechanic I hadn't realized was even missing previously.

Being able to combine the mechanisms of different mods into one machine to craft a variety of things is incredible! I never thought I'd be using Source (from Ars Nouveau) and Heat (from Mekanism) in combination to craft a component for progression! I never felt like the progression was grindy or annoying, there were always multiple paths to take if I didn't want to use a specific mod.

I had an absolute blast with this pack and I think you will too if you want a well thought out kitchen-sink pack.

The Lost Cities is a world generation mod that comes so close yet so far. While it can generate cities, the cities lack any variety and will quickly become monotonous. There are no custom loot tables, so there is not much reason to fight any of the mobs when you investigate. It has lots of customization, but adding new buildings is a very large undertaking, and support for non square multichuck buildings also sucks.

Note: I have a fork of this mod, and it still sucks.

Disclosure: I have been debugging some issues for the dev of this fork as well as making an addon for it. This mod is also very technical in its own right given that it runs a riscv64 VM for each computer. Meaning that everything in this review is very technically inclined.

The mod itself

It's basically a 1.21 port of OC2 Reimagined, and while I haven't looked at the 1.20 version to compare. The mod's textures honestly looks somewhat dated or more fitting of Minecraft's pre 1.14 art style. Though, in principle, anything sound related can be done by the user.

The VM

the VMs are a riscv64 Minux VM. They require 8MB at minimum to even boot. However, the current versions don't have internet capability even with it enabled in the config due to some issues with DHCP, meaning everything needs to be done with the file import/export card or paste injecting.

You can use systems other than the included lua engine if you can compile it and get it to fit onto the VM, such as micropython. Just keep in mind that the VM uses musl and not glibc, meaning that you need to compile anything using glibc statically. in micropython's case, I had to cross compile from x86_64 -> riscv64 with static libs on my PC, compress it via xz (as there's no zip util on the VM), use the file card to get the archive on the VM, then decompress it with the xz on the VM in order to use micropython. But even then, you'll need lua wrappers since nothing is exposed via a file on the VM. Not 100% ideal, but it's better if you're familiar with python more than lua.

There's also the fact that the file imports start the search in your game instance folder and not the home folder on Linux. Slight oversight I'm guessing...

Mod compatibility

as far as the computer itself, even though they advertise create support. It's not to where it can read create machines. It's only support so that it doesn't break when moving on create contraptions. On it's own, it's only able to interact in world with redstone and project red's bundled wires. You basically need an addon for it to interact with anything else. (I've tried with create's stress meter and some mekansim stuff)

The Potential

This can easily evolve into a teaching util for your kids if you play your cards right. Have them control other mod's machines from an actual linux VM. Just requires some setup on your part at current.

I have a lot more experience regarding this mod in 1.12 (due to using/having used it in packs in this version), but I did try again its 1.20 iteration, screenshots from there

What is it ?

This is a mod focused on adding tons of variants to existing monsters in a similar way to the 1.10 update adding the strays and the husks as undead variants.

What does it offer ?

When spawning, vanilla mobs now have to chance to get replaced by their default special mobs counterpart (which are called the "vanilla replacement" mobs -> for example a minecraft:zombie spawning has a high chance to get replaced by a "specialmobs:specialzombie ; this feature can be disabled if you have mods in your pack which only affect specifically the vanilla mobs), or less often replaced by special variants (depending on the biome, dimension, base rarity and possibly other factors which can be controlled; for example, in plains a zombie spawning has a high chance of becoming a specialmobs:specialzombie but can instead spawn as a specialmobs:zombiebrute for example).
The in-game config is very clear and these informations have been obtained there.
It is by tweaking the base chances and exceptions that you can make stuff such as variants which appear more often (or even always) than the vanilla replacement (such as plague zombies appearing more often than the vanilla replacement for zombies when appearing in swamps, but making plague zombies have a base chance of 0 to make it so they end up being swamp-specific).

Here's a list of the affected mobs (with examples of the most interesting variants; though there's a lot more which I won't talk about) :

When several vanilla mobs are set within a common category it means they share many variant concepts

Creepers :

-The dark creeper which destroys perfectly well sources of light while giving you blindness
-The Scope creeper, looks hilarious; it's a post 1.12 mob which has spyglasses on his eyes, he can detect you from much further

Zombies , Drowneds & Zombified Piglins :

-for zombies there's the mad scientist (only available in recent versions), which poison you in melee
-for drowneds there's the exclusive abyssal (which is more resilient and give you a weight effect to make you sink faster and tropical (which throws poisonous tridents at you) variants
-for zombified piglins the most special is the Vampire Piglin, which is really resilient and looks closer to a regular piglin than an undead

Skeletons & Wither Skeletons :

-There's the ninja, which hides by turning into blocks and tries to backstab you, exists for both
-There's the pirate (which is new too), he can appear at sea (can be changed) and can use boat+shoots spectral arrows

Slimes & Magma Cubes :

-The Blackberry and Volatile , are acting like creepers
-The newer Potion Slime , can give you a potion effect on melee depending on the potion color it has

Spiders & Cave Spiders :

-The Witch Spider can give you negative potion effects on melee, while giving itself positive ones for every hit she gives (behaves differently in 1.12)
-The Water Spider can walk on water (appears on the sea and rivers by default too (it's a new mob)
-The Flying Spider can jump really far to reach you quickly

Silverfish :

-There's the Fishing silverfish , acting like some other fishing type mob variants and having the ability to reel you in
-There's the "pufferfish" (new), which can poison you, looks like a pufferfish and can swim too
-There's the Albino silverfish which can shoot you with icy projectiles

Endermen :

-There's the Mirage Enderman which makes you see double as it appears to clone itself
-There's the Thief Enderman which can teleport you when hitting you
-There's the Runic Enderman which can shoot a laser of its mouth and make you levitate on hit (is new)

Witches :

I will go in details about all of their variants since I find them to be the most detailled and interesting (plus there is less variants for them than for most other groups)
-Witch of Domination throws homemade levitation potions, and can use some telekinetic powers to move you around; she has a pretty stylish costume and a nice hat
-Ice Witch can turn near water into ice, allowing her to walk on it, she is also pretty resilient; she wears a blue coat (is new)
-Witch of Shadows throws potions of blindness/wither; she looks ominous- Lichthrows instant damage potions (exclusively) and sometimes throws skeletons at you too; she looks like a zombified witch- Witch of the Wildsthrows Poisonous potions exclusively, can summon little spiders and can summon a larger one to ride too- Wind Witchcan teleport like endermen, which makes her probably the hardest mob to fight### Blazes:
-There's the Joltwhich will teleport every time you hit it, summoning lightning in its place-The Armored blaze(new) has an armor, which needs to be destroyed before hitting the entity hiding behind### Ghasts:
-the Queen and King ghastsare more powerfull versions of ghasts, one summoning little ghasts while the other has more firepower-the Slab ghast(new) is much faster and aggressive than his friends-the Unholy ghastis really resilient, stalks you but attacks in melee if you get too closeMost of the mobs's models were unchanged back in 1.12 (only having texture tweaks or recolors), but the mod has since updated , adding new mob variants and readapting older ones, even changing the models of some creatures, the most notable being the witches|| in terms of aesthetic improvements.
Other tweaks were made to general undeads, which can now appear naturally wielding bows (or sometimes skeletons will appear holding and using swords), and can appear with and use shields (which will negate all projectiles before them and some melee frontal hits).

Main issue with this mod ? The performances .
As it turns out, the way this mods checks for mobs to replace by other mobs seems to make the game ever so slightly laggier every time a new concerned creature appears. it's actually because certain mobs's AI causes this, it doesn't seem to apply to all mob replacement
it's small, but noticeable in larger packs.

In conclusion

I like this mod, it does its job at adding vanilla-like mob variant similar to the husk and stray in looks and behavior.

Quite configurable as you can decide exactly in which biomes/biome types the mob replacement occurs.

Unfortunately, its impact on the performances (especially in 1.12) land this mod in a similar spot to Quality Tools in the sense that it cannot be used in serious larger packs .
Maybe the performances issues will get fixed somehow, or are already fixed in the very recent 1.20.1 update and I just haven't played enough to notice.
take it with a grain of salt as I remind you I have mostly played through the 1.12 version

Pollution of the Realms is basically a addon for tech mods. Its a great nerf to IE and furnaces, especially for large bases. If too much pollution builds up you get negative effects and it makes your base way easier to find.

It does have a pretty large performance impact and i wish the pollution would spread out faster but it works very nice.

Target Dummy (im not calling it by its true name), does what it says on the tin very well. It adds a well made dummy that shows damage numbers and has some jiggle physics thats useful for testing out weapons.

However, on every server with this mod installed (that ive played) i havent seen anyone ever use this mod. Its very good for singleplayer creative testing but i would not recommend installing this for your players to use.