Minecraft Mod & Modpack Reviews

whether the leaf decay were to be fast or not, it has ALWAYS peeved me that oak leaves would stick to birch trees and birch leaves would stick to oak trees (and so on). not only does this mod beautifully cause leaves to decay respective to their tree type, but the datapack compatibility support is a step above and beyond

btw, the reason I rate performance is because, on my low-end device, mods like the OG Fast Leaf Decay will cause a single frame drop for each leaf block that is forced to decay quickly; it's weird and the underlying cause is a long story... but! Separated Leaves does not have this effect, so five stars for the uninterrupted, smooth deforesting experience!

This mod is so useful, helping you quickly collect the saplings to replant and clearing ugly floating leaves. This mod has been updated all the way from 1.7 and I have used it almost since I first started modding.

This mod is ubiquitous and I advise adding it to any pack where you need to break trees.

This modpack is fundamentally pointless: there's no plot, you're just in a room with white materia that you can turn into a million other materia through about 50 production lines and machines, all so you can make the fabled rainbow materia and hit save and quit to title. But the fun, good part of this modpack is that you don't need to know anything to beat it and even if you don't like factorio-style automation and scaling complexity, this might just hook you in and start a hobby far bigger than the pack. It's the best technical/automation modpack I've ever played.

As an idiot with no meaningful automation experience (unless my ATM10 spaghetti setups count), I felt like the room key system gave me plenty of space to start and finish each chapter once I had discovered the y axis, and I'm sure everything I did could be optimized on a second run. All the machines are well drawn and are almost universally easy to route items and fluids to and from. The few mods that are placed into the pack such as actually subtractions are very useful throughout all stages and integrate seamlessly into progression and the aesthetic of the pack. I didn't even notice that the item and fluid pipes were from modern dynamics, though I will say that curvy pipes really does mess up the aesthetic of the mod (and are completely optional!)

One of my biggest complaints about this modpack is the lack of extensive Refined Storage, which the dev said was removed due to balance, and I find the removals very annoying and actively hurting QoL (a wireless crafting grid would have been amazing). I spent the majority of my playthrough with my inventory almost completely full of items and with an inventory sack also almost full, so I was constantly swapping through items and dumping stuff into random chests. It's also not clear that the crafting grid and controller are made through certain colors so I had to click through every variation until an actual recipe came up (which initially led me to believe it wasn't an intended part of the modpack).

A consequence of not having a centralized system for items or fluids (no exporting from RS) is that you are going to run pipes from room to room. There is one door where I've about 3 pipes going through and I can't even walk through it normally. An amazing thing I discovered (and hated not discovering earlier) is that by using extractors and filters on every input/output face, you can have one item network for your entire game. This saved me from so much channel hell.

Speaking of channel hell, some machines and the recipes required for them are a logistical nightmare. On one hand, this forced me to become very creative with how I would move energy and materials from block to block, becoming very conservative in my placements and feeling genuinely accomplished when seeing a line work. On the other hand, it slows down parts of the game due to not being able to easily scale things, leads beginners like me into raging over random outputs going to the wrong place at some unknown location in a 5 step process, and forcing awkward placements. At the end of the game, one recipe required 2 fluid inputs, 1 energy input, 1 item input, and 1 item output with 4 available faces, so I was forced to use a convoluted daisy-chain setup that bottlenecked my production because the machine right next to it was significantly faster but also forced to use every face with no way to move its outputs anywhere except the single bottleneck.

My complaints come from a place of love and should not discourage you from playing, as it makes completion all the more satisfying. On my first playthrough I gave it about an hour every day and with a longer stretch at the end, I was able to complete this in about two weeks. I intend to play again in a speedrun since this modpack is rather short and every bottleneck I had was probably self-inflicted. Great job Tilles, and I hope you can come back to tweaking this.

I'll start of by disclosing that most of my experience with this mod is alongside the origins mod, because it adds an origin that spawns you as a soul and allows you to possess and unposses mobs at will. While the default mechanics can be fun without using the origin, I personally found this mod most enjoyable when I could unpossess mobs at will and build an army of undead vessels.

This mod has great compatibility with other mods and worked flawlessly with mods like Better Nether last time I tried it, allowing me to possess undead modded mobs. The fact you gained the ability from husks to survive in the sun or of wither skeletons to inflict wither or modded mobs effects made a playthrough as an undead mob really fun.

The one issue I had with it was husks helmets still losing durability when out in the sun but this was only very minor. I would also say I don't think this mod is really suited for large packs that aren't focused on it, just because of how much it changes the death system.

I would personally advise everyone to try it out at least once, however, and experience playing the game with a different set of challenges!

this is a very good datapack. you should play it on your own time! the advancements are useful to figure out what to do next. play it. you should play it!

the changes to the nether and end are also very fun to play around with, inshallah next update soon

At its core, this mod does exactly what it sets out to do. Disables mandatory telemetry integrated into Minecraft. It works great.

One of the things that makes Minecraft so unique is the independent control that the game was developed for. This mod, in a way, is special because it is an upfront showcase of that independence. A display of rebellion that reflects and inspires life and culture.

This mod disables the chat reporting that was incorporated as a part of Microsoft's journey to infuse safety measures within Minecraft. In vanilla, whether a server is an officially hosted Minecraft Realm or a privately hosted dedicated Minecraft server, players could report any messages sent that were thought to violate trust and safety rules. This mod works perfectly fine to disable this.

98% of the modpack is a really good time. Literally the last three quests are abhorrent. To become strong (never die and 6 shot bosses) only like 2-3 mods are required. But the modpack forces you, in the last 2-3 quests to make the pinnacle items of all the mods just to beat the last boss which is laughable compared to the ender dragon (I 4 shot the last boss). But even before that when I tried to summon the last boss it just ate the items and didnt spawn anything so i had to do it through JEI. And the last optionable boss you would have to spend another 2 hours just to try and find it. Please play through the pack if you want to learn about the main mods but dont expect to thoroughly enjoy it to the absolute end.

I really, really tried to like this pack. I'd played it in Singleplayer and with my gaggle of friends both, hoping that the experience would be different. I adored the 1st pack so, so very much. When I heard that a second one was being made on a newer version of Minecraft, I was elated. The biggest issues I'd had was the old version and performance, which would both be solved on a newer version. While I knew it wouldn't have Thaumcraft or Astral Sorcery, I was still more than happy to see what would come to pass.

I played the modpack on release. It was rough, but I knew that it was the first pass and that most of my gripes would probably be ironed out. Mobs being too tough, the Tinker's Construct focus being pretty rough, and the mining dimension being pretty bad were all initial issues, but I figured that it would be resolved with enough time.

Let's start with the good of my second playthrough:

The Tinkers focus is great. Custom tools and armour is one of the most thrilling things a pack can include in my opinion. Small problem though - getting extra slots for some of these is grueling. Most of them require killing a boss of some kind. More on that later, but for now we'll say that's a bit of a problem. Upgrades are slow and gear improvements are even slower, but it's satisfying to upgrade you gear after finally getting that new material. That being said, Antimatter from Mekanism being the clearly best material in the modpack for most applications is a very questionable choice.

There's a bit more custom content and it now, notably, has something resembling a shop!

The questbook has been fleshed out significantly!

There's a few more content mods that I like quite a lot. Ice and Fire is always fun when handled properly! (not spawning dragons every few meters)

Now onto the ugly, and I really am sorry:

There are some truly baffling choices in this pack, mod wise. One that I joked about constantly - no megatorch. The Braziers mod was chosen instead, which, historically has not correctly prevented spawns in every pack it's been in. I had a few mobs kill my pets because, shocker to no one, mobs kept spawning despite building the 10 block tall structure. Mind you, the structure has 4 valid building blocks and 2 of them consist of Netherite materials. The ugly Crying Obsidian + Gilded Blackstone pillar that doesn't properly prevent spawns is great! Seriously, this choice alone highlights every other choice made in this pack.

Why do Flux Networks require the endgame of Mekanism? Are they really that overpowered? No no, we can't keep the compacting drawer recipe to uncraft Wool into String, that would be TOO strong! The Cataclysm structure that has 20+ Lodestones that melt down into FULL NETHERITE INGOTS is perfectly fine, though! No balancing issues whatsoever. Why Xaero's and not Journeymap? The highest tier of building wand also needs endgame Mekanism materials? Is Mekanism the only tech mod MCE2 has to show for itself? There are just TONS of small things that make me scratch my head and go "..why?". Part of the magic of MCE1 was that these mods were mostly left untouched. Modifying the recipes like this makes this pack so painfully similar to other packs that just simply do this but better.

The custom mining dimension, The Great Below, is a total sham to me. I do not like this dimension, or the "Dwarven Depths" for one simple reason: No night vision. I have never seen more of an accessibility nightmare. There is however, a solution! The Great Below has its own custom night vision helmet you can wear! Oh, well I have to take my helmet off but otherwise that's great! Small problem: it's terrible. Both forms, unupgraded and upgraded are visually terrible. You are infinitely better off just bringing a bunch of torches. On top of that - there is NO reason to be there any longer than grabbing the basic essentials of Mekanism. The dimension is themed around the Warden and sculk - it also includes a bunch of mobs that one-shot you whether you crouch or not. This entire dimension fell flat for me and the 5 other people who had stepped in there, I am honestly surprised this has stayed the exact same since release.

On top of the above, the Dwarven Depths nearly gives you a seizure. This is the first time I have ever felt the need for a seizure warning on a modpack. There's an even worse part - there was a mod that dims out the night vision installed at some point in the pack, judging by the config files. Whether it was removed because it broke their custom "epic scary mining dimension" or because it outright didn't work, I'm not sure about. Also, you have to hold a Golden Lantern in the Dwarven Depths. If you've made a two-handed weapon, then you better reconsider.

The biggest issue I had with this pack by far, which I personally think it does worse than ANY OTHER PACK, is the difficulty. RLCraft Dregora, Dawncraft, Infernal Origins. All of those packs were easier than MCE2 difficulty wise. My. God. This pack is borderline unplayable with keep inventory, I earnestly do not believe ANYONE can complete the Challenges section of this pack on Hardcore. Ah yes, I think the Fire Zombie should deal more damage to me than the WITHER. Nobody who helps develop has played this pack in its entirety, and it so painfully shows. It's not fun difficulty wise, at all. By the end, I became apathetic to it. I accepted that everything one-shots you, and you are forced to respawn cheese it. I have played tons of modpacks, and I know almost every one of the 600+ mods in MCE2 extensively. This cannot be a skill issue. Wither chest beam? One shot. Dead King? One shot. Netherite Monstrosity? One shot. Everything will one shot you, no matter your armour. This pack EMBODIES the concept of "cosmetic armour". This packs tries to emulate the feeling of Dark Souls with the dodge roll and Cataclysm, when ironically, armour in Dark Souls actually lets you take a few hits.

MCE1 had more than enough content to where it felt no need to change many recipes or add anything that could be considered "fluff". MCE2 requires dragging out itself by requiring an artificial grind and requires all mobs to kill you nigh instantly. The moment you turn off mob griefing and turn on keep inventory, this whole pack falls apart. As MCE1 stands in the top 3 for me, MCE2 stands firmly in the bottom 3. I am so so so SO disappointed with this pack. If you liked even the concept of this pack, I recommend Chocolate Edition instead. Nobody in my group wants to play this pack, and I won't even consider putting this back up from a few years to now.

Also, I lied. If you get lucky and roll a Staff of Surpression from quest rewards, you don't even need the **** Brazier as it blocks mob spawns reliably. What a joke.

This mod is a tangible representation of the ingenuity and passion of the modded Minecraft community. People coming together to create custom models and animation for all of these Pokemon, not to even mention all the other mechanics that are incorporated, is absolutely stunning! This IS the definitive BEST Pokemon mod for Minecraft! I've had a ton of fun choosing from all the starters and going through the mod, gathering Pokemon and trading with friends!