Large Forum Review
First Impressions
Rainbow Road is a great place. First time coming to it, visitors were welcomed with the slowly moving banner of Nintendo games and a dark theme which does not hurt the eyes. The banner of the site is plain but is closed by the rest of the theme. Looking at the activity of the forum itself, it is not bad although it feels slightly empty, perhaps because it is rather new. The domain was quite confusing, since the site name is without 'a' in front of it. That could confuse members the next time they come here as they may type "rainbowroad" more then "arainbowroad".
(Score: 12/15)
Appearance
Starting from the top, you will have to improve on the header and top part of the forum. The idea of moving background is interesting, it gives different feeling of the forum in general. The banner, in that place, is made simple to let the background stands out, so I think. Yet I think you can explore the banner a little more, for example by adding icon to the banner or change the font of the text you use. I'm not really familiar with Nintendo games, so you will know better than me of fonts that represent popular Nintendo games or anything else related to Nintendo. Should you decide on using an icon, it can also be used for the site's favicon as I noticed you still use standard IPB icons. That will help to build the feeling of a Nintendo forum stronger.
The theme itself is not very bad but plain. Dark theme, as much as light theme, has a lot to explore. In my eyes dark theme gives you a chance to let the content of your forum to stand out more with better designs. The category/forum icons are only dots, which are quite boring, I must say. Change them into a set which represents Nintendo better. The same goes as I browse deeper to the topic icons and the rank image/pip sets. Do not forget to take into account clear difference between new posts and no new posts because if you don't it will be rather confusing.
The footer is bland, nothing different or special about it.
You have done a great work with the moving banner, I think you can proceed to edit the background of body and footer too. Having the whole background moving like the banner might be too distracting and uncomfortable for members, so maybe you can add a rather transparent permanent background or something similar to remove the 'empty and bland' feeling from the forum.
You have quite a big empty space in the side bar there with only one widget about recent topics. You can (and should) use those empty spaces with more interesting things, such as latest posts, news about Nintendo maybe, random pictures related to Nintendo games, or anything else which could help to add content and encourage discussions at the forum.
(Score: 11/20)
Statistics and Activity
Rainbow Road has 689 posts and 33 members. Roughly dividing it, you have 20 posts per member. For a forum that has only been open for not even two weeks, that is quite a good number, both forum total posts and members post rate. You only have 9 members with 0 posts, but we can say that the majority of your forum posts are made by staff members, slightly above half of total posts. There is quite a gap between the posts of staff members and regular members. In addition, only 3 members online in the last 24 hours with reviewer account included. While that is understandable for a new forum, you will have to work hard to raise the balance so that members would have better post rate compared to the staff members. Perhaps contest, fun features, or regular events would help to keep members interested and keep posting.
(Score: 15/20)
Ratios
The ratio of the forums are good enough. Small forum is the best size to start with because it helps to focus discussions. You can always expand whenever it is needed. For your moderating team, for a size as big as 33 members only, you have 4 staff members with 2 administrators, 1 global moderator, and 1 moderator. I feel this is a bit too much for your current condition. Two administrators might be needed but make sure that you have clear job descriptions for each or else it will be useless to have two. There is quite a post count difference between both administrators so perhaps you want to review this too. The only one moderator you have is assigned to some kind of general entertainment section while it is currently very small with not many topics. You may think you need a moderator to help start threads and posting, but for the current size I don't think you really need one. It is not in the size where you will need someone to handle the moderation since you can do it on your own.
(Score: 6/10)
Content
Grammar wise I don't have a problem with Rainbow Road. You capitalized the "n" in all "not" word in your forum rules thread. While I understand you want to emphasize that, grammatically that is not correct. Otherwise, I think you have done well to keep up good grammar as much as you can around the forum, which is a good job.
For category and forum names as well as their descriptions, I think you can take it easy a little. You name a forum with a unique name, but then you add its general name in brackets, for example "News Channel (News and Updates)". This one is not needed, in my opinion, as "News Channel" is already clear enough to show its usage. If you are worried members might not know what the forum is for, like how you have "Bug Reports (Feedback and Suggestions)", then I would suggest you to change the name to a more general one, not only "bug reports", but a name which also covers feedback and suggestions. Also try to be unique as much as you can. This is a Nintendo forum, a title as general as "Feedback and Suggestions" will be very boring. One great example is how you named your introduction section "Meet Mii!". That is original and very Nintendo-ish. That is what you need to keep on doing. Do not worry about members being confused too much; you can 'pay' for that at the forum descriptions.
The same goes with your off-topic sections. You have "Community Banter" and "Community Board". The names are very common and do not truly show what the sections are for. In addition, I think you can actually merge those two sections altogether since they are rather similar and focuses on members and empty at the time being. If you want to expand the general discussion section, look at what kind of discussion your community will be interested at. To do this you may want to start small with the general discussion section and expand later when needed.
For the distribution of posts in the forums itself, I think you are going at the right direction. It is nice to see the on-topic sections to have most posts compared to other. Keep this up as much as possible. Usually over time general discussions area would 'take over' and that is natural, in my opinion. Keep on bringing content as in news or new discussion threads or events to make posters happy and interested because they have something to talk about.
(Score: 14/20)
Navigation
The navigation is pretty easy and simple. Not many menu you have so not many you need to add anyway. You may want to expand the forum rules to be accessible to the entire forums wherever the user currently is for better coverage. In the rules thread you specify "Terms of Use and Code of Conduct" but it cannot be found anywhere. I guess it might be integrated with the forum rules; better state it out clearly. The quick navigation option is rather not so well noticed for those who do not use IPB often. Perhaps you can change the icon into text so visitors and members know what the link is for. The back-to-top button is unclear. Give more color contrast to the icon to make it better.
(Score: 12/15)
Total Score
70/100
Final Remarks
Rainbow Road is a new Nintendo forum among lots other Nintendo forums. For this only, you will have to work hard on how to keep the site fresh, updated, and inviting visitors to join and members to post. You have a quite good base already in my eyes given that you start only a short while ago. What you need next is to keep on improving and market the site in proper ways as much as you can to make it grow.
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