# A Taste Akin to Raspberries

Frankly, I can’t do this pack justice. Please check it out on Curseforge and play it yourself. Raspberry Flavoured (yucky British spelling) is, essentially, Minecraft given a second glance. For example: experience is removed as its an antiquated, grindy system that was Notch’s poor attempt to turn Minecraft into an RPG. Instead, enchantments are crafted using various materials that require you to explore the world. Every mechanic has been thoughtfully examined and considered with one comprehensive vision and without fear of change.

# The Glaze

# Sane progression? Impossible…

This has already been written about a ton, but Minecraft’s progression curve is terrible. You use wood tools for a minute, stone tools for five, then iron for two hours, then diamond for twenty hours. Don’t even get me started on gold and copper tools, or, God forbid, leather and chainmail armor. The progression of RF is far more flat, you use wood for twenty minutes, then copper (stone tools are removed) for an hour until you get iron. However, once you get iron, the world opens up. You could just get diamond, but you could also get steel which is slower but far more durable, or even rosegold which has innate silk-touch– you also might want to keep some regular gold tools around since they have innate fortune. Then, after diamond, you get the choice between griefer, electrum, sanguine, netherite, and necromium, all with unique effects. Ultimately, there is far more player choice and urgency with this system, making for a more engaging and personal experience. This is just the tip of the iceberg, there’s so many more changes, however, this should give you a glimpse into what its like.

# Inventory management made good (kinda)

RF backports bundles, but, also adds sacks and makes Shulker boxes (now called Terrabins) more easily accessible. Sacks are essentially smaller, early game Shulker boxes–they’re easy to obtain and are useful throughout the entire game. Additionally, RF adds Tom’s Simple Storage for bulk item storage and sorting, however, it may be replaced in the future due so I won’t go in depth on it. Ultimately though, its still Minecraft, inventory management will always be a little annoying (specifically hotbar stuff).

# There’s stuff to explore!

There are a plethora of new structures, biomes and mobs that make exploration feel fresh. Unlike other packs, the world still feels virgin–structures are scarce and typically dead. And, because of how much slower progression is, the loot from these structures is actually valuable. Not only are there numerous more biomes, such as the beautiful maple forest that I made my home, but biomes are given more variety via Geophilic.

# A double edged sword, pt. 1

Combat is massively improved with new weapons, mechanics, and enemies. “Special” metals like rose gold, necromium, etc have unique weapons with some very neat effects–the Necromium Claymore, my personal favorite, is a two handed sword that charges up and shoots out a blade projectile. There are also new shields and a parrying mechanic, which, while not advanced as Dark Souls, is still very cool. There’s also tons of new enemies and challenges; spiders now shoot cobwebs, theres tons of new Creeper variations thanks to Creeper Overhaul, and Mimics pose a threat even to late-game players. As for bosses, the Wither has been giga-buffed and Nether Fortresses feature the Wildfire from the 2017 mob vote. I can’t fully discuss this since there’s still a lot of content I haven’t experienced, but its all very cool.

# Create

As a nerd, I fucking love Create. But, this isn’t an article about Create so I’ll refrain from glazing it. What I will glaze is RF’s incredible implementation of Create. Create is integrated into the core progression but not in an overbearing way. Automation isn’t required, you can get by with just a water wheel, a press, and some mechanical crafters–but automation is still available at an appropriate point in time to those who want it. However, you still need those aforementioned components because many recipes, such as alloys, require Create to be crafted. I suck at writing so I can’t fully express my thoughts, but the implementation is masterful.

# The Few Critiques

# The anvil in the room

Unfortunately, RF is built on Forge and there’s no plans to move to Fabric. I understand why, its a pain in the ass, but Forge is worse in basically every way. Hopefully it’ll become a viable option in the future, but I doubt it.

# I still use KeepInventory

Call me a pussy, call me bad at games, but I beat Malenia no-hit at RL1 with a Lordsworn’s Straightsword and a Buckler. I don’t find death in Minecraft to be fun, just frustrating and run-ending. RF does make this better since your items don’t despawn and are individually less valuable due to the enchantment nerfs, but I still don’t find it fun. However, a new enchantment called Recall Latch will be added which prevents an item from being lost on death, likely solving this. We’ll see what happens.

# A double edged sword, pt. 2

While the aforementioned combat improvements are much appreciated, I still don’t like the combat. Just as with base game, the best strategy is to cheese the system–running away from mobs and placing torches then waiting for them to despawn, or hiding in a wall slashing their feet are still more effective than head-on combat. This is only exemplified by some of the changes RF makes:

1. Skeletons can now spawn with swords which partially removes the biggest threat to running.
2. Mimics are incredibly tanky and punish greatly you for getting hit, making avoiding them the best strategy.
3. Spiders can prevent you from bailing out of a combat scenario, but don’t prevent you from entirely avoiding. This means that whenever you get into a fight you don’t think you win, there’s a chance you won’t be able to escape and will die. This makes running from your current combat scenario less viable, but makes avoiding the scenario altogether more appealing.

So, whats the solution? Frankly, I don’t have one, the best answer I can propose is a band-aid: decrease hostile mob spawn rates. I’m very interested in seeing what you all think about this and what solutions you come up with.

# Conclusion

Its just really fucking good–I couldn’t even write down everything I love about it. Please just try it on curseforge and donate to them on their kofi.