Parzival000

Before you could download 20 different mods, each adding a new group of animals, creatures, and other fauna to the game, Dr Zhark's Mo' Creatures was the option.

Despite being now ancient and outdated, this used to be the pinnacle of minecraft animal mods. It had a complex installation and setup process, but once you got it set up it could transform any minecraft world to a more immersive, more realistic world.

Highly recommend for those on older versions.

The One Probe: besides being a horrible name for a Minecraft mod, this is honestly a great mod for those complex, techy, and magic oriented modpacks. For those wanting a more vanilla+, immersive, lightweight feel, I’d look for simpler alternatives.

I know the mod is fully customizable; and I know it is in active development for modern Minecraft versions, and I know it is extremely useful, but remember the days when WAILA or TWYLA or HWYLA were the options? A simple UI, simple tooltips and info, still great customization, but it starts simple, not trying to show too much information or take up too much of the screen.

The one probe is not that mod. If you want to know exactly every detail of what you’re looking at all over the screen, this is a helpful mod. If you’re running a super complex modpack, or using lots of tech and magic and machinery and storage, this is probably a good option. If you are trying to enhance your Minecraft world or add to a vanilla+ or lightweight mod pack, I’d say to look for an alternative.

While I love the other Pam's Harvestcraft 2 mods, Crops is always the first one I download for any modded world or modpack.

To me, the best aspect of the mod are the immersive, (bio)diverse, and useful bushes and foliage you find throughout the wild. While the foods and growing the crops are really great and polished as well, being able to add a huge variety of immersive bushes and foliage with a huge variety of new foods and plants with a single (awesome) mod is the best.

I love the simple, Minecraft-feeling of every texture, the bushes, and the crops and food. PHC 2 is one of those mods that has been supported and has updated & evolved to the modern modding scene, and I'm so happy to see it.

Mystical Agriculture is great, and a lot of fun for those that like farming and exploring rather than being deep in the mines. I also like how it's fairly simple, with some light magic elements but nothing too complex or overwhelming.

I think its main problem is the lack of new content and new textures. I feel like this mod has felt, looked, and functioned the same for years and years, and I think it's getting boring for me and a lot of other players. I don't want an overhaul or a modern remake, but new textures and new features are badly needed.

Mystical agriculture will always be one of my most-played mods, and I highly recommend it if you haven't played it yet, but it gets a bit stale after all these years.

Tinkers' Construct is just one of those mods that no alternatives can ever come close to. Being able to create your own custom tools, weapons, and armor with different attributes, using a surprisingly fun and simple smelting and alloys and materials system is just so engaging and fun.

While some aspects can be a little repetitive, confusing, or wiki/youtube-dependant, so are most mods! The awesome aspects of this mod far outweigh any negatives.

I can still remember trying to get different slime balls for the best attributes, and maxing out redstone, lapis, or quartz for each weapon or tool. Basically infinite customization, and a rare immersive yet not complex or boring crafting/smelting system.

I miss you, Tinkers' Construct. Some mods may try to replace you, or update you, but no mods will ever come close to Tinkers' Construct.

Wow, Sevtech: Ages is absolutely incredible. I'd say it's one of the best beginner modpacks too.
It's basically a giant, fun, and engaging tutorial for every single popular 1.12 mod. I played it when I didn't fully understand a lot of the tech and magic and dimension mods, and it helped me every step of the way. I promise you it isn't holding your hand or full of tutorials, I just think, in hindsight, it's an incredibly good teaching tool for mods and modpacks.

Sevtech: Ages just keeps you playing so much longer than any other modpack. It gives incredible direction, every step of the way I feel like I am building towards a better minecraft world. Quests feel fun, and every quest and progression step in this modpack leads to more fun quests, tools, and technology/magic you can do and use. There was never a point where I felt like I was overwhelmed or bored or didn't know what to do next.

I could write pages about the fun and memories I've had with friends completing this modpack, but I will spare you all.

Go play it if you haven't. It's a fresh take on the modern 1.12 modpack and incredibly fun, well made, and well polished. Highly recommend.

Ahh, Inventory Tweaks, my beloved <3...

While others might go to "the 5 (or 6) big ones" for their first, essential mods to download, I go straight to Inventory Tweaks. There's just something so satisfying with only having to remember one (or two) extra keys to completely organize any inventory or chest. Literally essential for any modern version of minecraft, modded or not.

It makes Minecraft life so much easier and less overwhelming. Spend less time organizing chests and inventories and spend more time enjoying your world.

There isn't much more to say about inventory tweaks. There's a ton of features I didn't mention, but the inventory sorting alone is absolutely worth it for me. 10/10 go download it for your modded world or modpack!!!

I LOVE so many features of this mod, and I try to include it in any modpack I play.

The problem is, Dynamic Trees is always the first mod to crash, is slightly too performance-heavy in forests and jungles, and it isn't compatible with many other mods.

I would play this mod in every single modpack if it wasn't performance heavy and cause so many crashes and incompatibility issues, especially with other common mods. Hopefully this has improved in newer updates, but it seems to be a very common occurrence.

I highly recommend, but try at your own risk!

Biome's O' Plenty: One of the most popular mods for a decade+, but hasn't come far since.
II also seems to be pulled in a few directions at once:

Stay the same as it has been for decades.
Turn minecraft into a massive, fantastical, mystical world
Turn minecraft into a realistic, immersive, IRL-esque world.

If they chose just one direction, I think it would be great. The problem is, they are trying to do all three things at once.

Pros:
Some very Realistic Biomes
Grander scale (huge biomes and huge trees)
Strong inspiration for many modern mods.

Cons:
Too many biomes, especially unrealistic
Takes away any "vanilla" minecraft feeling.
Too many new wood types, colors, and foliage. (20 different wood types, all basically the same, completely fill JEI and inventory menus).
Doesn't add other realism or immersion features to biomes (more realistic creatures, crops, or other foliage).

While I love the immersion and realism of Biomes O Plenty, I think that it hasn't grown much in quality, and hasn't changed or improved in years. Still half fake, mystical biomes and the other half are cool, realistic, minecraft-y and IRL-y biomes.

Great for beginner modders and modpacks, but we've all seen it before, and there are better biome mods out there now.

I HATE playing MC without dynamic lights, but most mods either have a performance-heavy version of dynamic lights built-in, or you have to get a separate, poorly-built dynamic lights mod.

No longer!
Lamb Dynamic lights is by far the best dynamic lighting mod. Not only is it fully configurable (not complex values or settings, but clear, understandable, important settings), but it is also FAR less-performance heavy as the other mods. Even with a powerful system, dynamic lights usually cause a noticeable FPS decrease, or I have to set my dynamic lights on "fast" or "low quality" mode, and they still affect performance and don't look the best.

Lamb Dynamic lights look great, run perfectly (not sure about slower systems but tested far better than other mods on my system), and don't cause any stutters, lighting issues, or crashes, even with shaders and other mods enabled.

I never thought I would leave such a long review on a dynamic lighting mod of all things, but this deserves it.

Highly recommend!