Spoony-Panda

Finished the pack, with about 95% of the total quests done. I was hyped on the trailer and I really dig a lot of the aesthetics. The first dimension and boss are pretty great!

That's when things start to fall apart.

There's a lot of custom recipes and items in this pack you have to use, which fit in somewhat thematically, and then all of a sudden you get a bunch of tech mods thrown at you with a lot of very powerful additions that are just... useless and overkill. I felt the theme got thrown out the window for streamer's favorite mods (ProjectE, AE2, Actually Additions, Thermal, etc.) It made some of the other mods and methods feel obsolete (TiC, Ars, Blood Magic, Occultism) -- which is a real shame because the pack would have done really well with leaning harder into those mods for the more tech-ish side of things.

I do like how apotheosis is somewhat nerfed, you can't make ridiculously high level enchants, and infernal mobs drop a few ingredients instead of constantly spamming items to disenchant and break down. Until end game (using Woot), you have to use your upgrades sparingly. That being said, power spikes pretty immediately following the first dimension. I basically went from soul stained to living armor, and never replaced it after that, because it was just so good. I basically used the upgraded scythe and infernal bow until post end game.

The main bosses were very cool thematically, and then the usual boss mods thrown in as mini-bosses (Mowzies, L_Ender, and the newer Qliphoth) -- but nothing outside of the instakill mechanics of one of the Qliphoth mods really gave any challenge. Still, I appreciate the work put in with these custom bosses and their arenas, very high quality for Minecraft.

Gating and pacing in the pack felt off. You unlock all these amazing tools for automation, just to have to abandon them for some really nasty manual crafting to summon the final boss. It felt like my hard work setting up any kind of passive and automation (AE2, Mystic Agriculture and ProjectE are all in this pack!) were just worthless. Another good example of this is after you fight the final boss, you're rug-pulled with an additional quest to do a generic boss battle Chaos Guardian fight from Draconic Evolution before getting to complete the final quest in the game.

Speaking of, having to go back constantly and interact with Embers... I'm a certified Embers hater, and it was awful, but not un-doable. For some reason one of the tech alloys is locked behind Embers, and it doesn't make any sense. But thankfully the plethora of tech mods added to this pack are a little bit of a double-edged sword. Having LaserIO so I didn't have to deal with embers pipes was the only reason I didn't quit. Embers is also the reason why I didn't 100% the quests, you just have to dive deep into the alchemy part of things and it was... not fun.

So all and all, very cool thematically as far as world building, boss design, sound, and custom content goes, but the pack falls flat on its face with pacing and the inclusion of powerful tech mods. I think leaning into the more fantasy nature of Norse Mythology would have worked wonders for this pack.

I probably took a little longer than the pack was made for, because I wanted to go through and make the Mk 15. Power Flower, passive some MystAg Seeds, build a max side Deep Disk Drive and Assembler Matrix.

This pack is not for the feint of heart. Expect to come in passiving and automating everything in the known galaxy.

Hands down, MeatballCraft is one of the most detailed, engrossing packs I've had the pleasure to play.

Early game starts out with you doing a bit of a kitchen sink thing, bouncing around through mods to ultimately unlock the Extended Crafting table, where Chapter 2 officially begins, which is where things really start to take off.

You will constantly bounce between exploring new dimensions, fighting new creatures, diving deep into familiar mods gated in new exciting ways. Passives become a puzzle of automation and logistics in a refreshing way that keeps me diving down a new an exciting rabbit hole every time I open the game up. I've spent hundreds of hours in this pack, taking my time learning many of these mods and how they interact with one another, and I am PUMPED to spend hundreds more.

Sainagh is constantly working to add further content, fix anything causing issues, and listens to community feedback. A lot of the custom textures, blocks and multis are pitched in by the community themselves.

Speaking of the community, the discord and people on it are top notch. Always providing a helping hand or just having a good time. I almost play the modpack as much for them as I do for myself.

While it's still in beta currently (the end game is being finished and refined) I still have so much more in front of me to explore and where I would have beaten most other packs ten times through, MBC keeps giving and giving.

Complete top notch experience that I use as a bar for all other packs I play, with no small wonder why I keep coming back to it.