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It's up: Man, love hearing the orchestra take on Tears of the Kingdom's Main Theme shame they went with the Reprise though, I wanted to hear the second half known for the sax

And then another chimes in, "I am Moana, too!"

Are you sure? Crunchyroll make it their mission to have the worst ads of all time. After watching the same advert four times in a row, I'm ready to give up and pay anything to make it stop.

I can't wait for the moment where she sings "I am.....Moana 2!" Going to be so good.

Welp, here we are. 27 boards done, and we're here for the final N64 one! You thought it'd be a Bowser themed one? Well, too bad, Waluigi Time! Waluigi's Island This board is chaotic! Very fitting for Waluigi, there's a lot going on. So I'll go through each thing of note. The first thing is Dynamite Island on the bottom of the board. It's quite similar to the Coin Beam in Mario Party 2's Space Land. The countdown begins on 5 and goes down every time someone lands on a Happening Space on the island. When that reaches 0, it blows up and anyone on that circle will lose ALL OF THEIR COINS! Be very careful when traversing this place. It would be relatively easy to leave this place if it wasn't for the next gimmick... Right above Dynamite Island, there's the Junction Roulette. When you try to leave Dynamite Island, you'll be forced into Action Time. Each arrow will flash clockwise and the one you land on is the direction you'll go. The speed at which the arrows cycle is random. And yes, you can go back down on to Dynamite Island. Here's the trick though, it can be timed. Press A right when the arrow you want is lit up, and you'll land on it every time! This can be tricky if it goes really fast, but remember this, it's a huge help! At the top right of the board, near Boo, there's a bizarre junction, when you get there, you can choose which path to take. There's a 50% chance that you'll fall into a booby trap, and get sent back to the start. This makes going to Boo an unreliable tactic. Don't count on it too much. Finally, there's the island on the top left. Notice how, apart from the Bank space, it's all red spaces? Well those spaces change every turn! They could be blue! They could be Battle Spaces! They could be Game Guy! This island is chaos incarnate! To get on to the island you have to use one of those bridges. Only one is down at a time, and which one is down changes when someone lands on a Happening Space near a bridge. Oh, and just a final note. Going into any red pipe will take you to the green pipe near the start. Phew, a lot to take in there. Mushrooms and Golden Mushrooms will help you get through dangerous areas quickly, while Reverse Mushrooms can get you back on track if the Junction Roulette messes you up. Skeleton Keys aren't very great, as the gates are a bit situational. Warp Block, on the other hand, is dangerous. It's awkward to get around, and a well timed Warp Block can really ruin someone's play. I don't know when @Dcubed will be available next week, so we'll see.

@Glen-i better make it 8:30pm... I need more time to prepare for the atrociousness of this board.

I mean... I'm happy enough to take your word for it, but it sounds like it has to be experienced to fully appreciate its atrocrity. I fixed it for ya. 😂

Lovely stuff, mostly the same arrangements as seen in the Seattle Nintendo Live event last year, but still great. These concerts are always wonderful; always great to see Nintendo pay tribute to the series as a whole

OK, @S.C.G. 8pm. And then you'll realise why Backtrack is the worst board in Mario Party history.

Really? Have you played Perfect Dark Zero!?

Reminder that The Legend of Zelda Orchestra Concert will be available today from midday:

We all knew it was coming, but I've just got an email from Funimation that they're closing their service on 2nd April and going fully over to Crunchyroll. I currently pay for the no-ads subscription, but if that price goes up I shall cancel and endure advertisements.

You enjoying it more now? Have you played the 3rd (best) one before? Yeah, their output could have given the Gamecube some much needed exclusive software and plugged the software droughts it had. I would have loved to have seen Kameo and PDZ release on it. Rare's output post Nintendo was also pretty good. As someone who played all of their games until Sea of Thieves, I had a great time with each of them and there was certainly some Rare magic and charm in them all. Kameo, Viva Pinata, Kinect Sports, Banjo: N&B showed that Rare may not have had the big names with them anymore but were still more than capable of creating fun and interesting games. Even Perfect Dark Zero got a lot of play time by me and my friends thanks to how much fun the online multiplayer was. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Rare were a far better studio than Retro have ever been and yet Nintendo brought them into the fold but baffling let Rare go.

So I played an hour or so yesterday of the Open Beta. It felt distinctly average. The main gripe I had was camera and aiming settings couldn't be adjusted in the Beta so it soured my whole experience. Such an odd thing to block. You can adjust your sailing camera...Great. In terms of gameplay and graphics well let's start with Gameplay. It got mildly interesting during sections where you're fighting other ships but there didn't really feel like there was any sense of tactics or nuance to the combat. Now weapons etc can be upgraded but actual combat itself just felt like me and the other ship circling each other until one got destroyed. Sailing the open water felt a bit dull. I can't put my finger on it. Perhaps because the ship I had wasn't really that fast so I'm sure that might change. Thing is in Sea of Thieves at least there's things to do while you sail. Checking map coordinates, making minor adjustments to your bearing, keeping an eye out for enemy ships etc. Here you are just sailing from point A to B with nothing to do other than, if you want, starting fights with other ships but then that leaves you vulnerable if you're heading for a contract where you have to fight enemy ships lol. I also felt it just wasn't particularly easy to play. How they approach button configuration feels really off. Graphically it is massively underwhelming. I appreciate this is a Beta but man, really not impressed. For a game in development so long I'm really surprised. The positives for the moment however I did feel the community, at the time I played, was respectful and worked together. I would join people taking on enemy ships and vice versa. It happened quite organically so that was quite cool. It's certainly not a game I'd spend any money on as it just didn't pull me in. There was no immediate story hook either. You just play some voiceless pirate who has no real backstory other than surviving a ship battle. Again this might likely get explored later but if the gameplay doesn't draw you in sometimes a good story hook can. Wasn't there for me. So to summarise I might play it again if it's on game pass but that'd be it.

Honestly? We may well get the first announcement during next week’s Nintendo Direct. The timing already matches up so flawlessly that they may well just latch onto Nintendo’s audience; especially if Nintendo and Microsoft have already come to some sort of behind-the-scenes deal (which would be an extension of their already existing relationship). As for Phil Spencer? He has already been pushing this multiplatform future for some time now. I could absolutely see him turning up in a Nintendo Direct. I can’t see him being SO against the idea of a multiplatform future that he would quit in protest; I think he’d have to be forced out.

Rare was already starting to fall apart before the Microsoft buyout. Most of the GE/PD team left right before the end of PD’s development to form Free Radical, you had Martin Hollis leaving to found Zoonami (after working freelance for a few years as a consultant on the GCN hardware’s development), lots of other staff members like Neil Gallagher were leaving to go into education or go freelance or join other companies. And most critically of all? The Stamper Brothers had already announced their intention to retire by 2000-2001; really, this was the biggest reason why Nintendo chose not to buy the remaining 51%. Tim & Chris Stamper were really the lifeblood of the company, and it’s when they left in 2007 that the house of cards truly fell apart.

Looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts on this one, @drahkon. Haven't bit the bullet and picked it up myself (I think in large part because my group still has our BG3 campaign running), but it's really tempting to just pick it up and play through it a little mindlessly when our entire group isn't available but we just want to hop on and talk. I've said it before but the way this game has been handled has been super weird, to me at least. No beta or open demo for people to hop in and get a taste for the game ahead of launch, really weird trailers which I think marketed the game terribly and a strange cadence of trailer releases (I mean, releasing more trailers after your launch trailer? Really?)... ...but it still seems like it's doing really well, at least based on early Steam CCU numbers? Seeing a lot of buzz for and conversation around it, the early reviews/first impressions seem positive, there's a definite Zeitgeist around this game right now, and I won't lie, having delayed multiple purchases already based on the huge influx of games we've had at the start of the year and this game being half the price of those other titles...it's mighty tempting. If nothing else, I am SUPER curious. It seems like a bit of mindless, over the top fun, which I don't have much of going on with the games I'm playing at the moment. I think I'll see what the impressions/early reviews are saying when I get up in the morning and figure it out from there think we all know where this is heading... EDIT:

Anyway, this is what my above GIF is referring to. Yeah, @lostmario totally deserved the win that time. He had the defense up, and was too far ahead for me to catch up. Mario Kart don't care sometimes. And one more happy coincidence.

I'm considering it, but I need to do a bit more research apart from 20 second YouTube ads before other videos. If it's just naval warfare and related stuff, crafting only for boat etc and a lot of sailing, I might give it a miss. If it's like Assassin's Creed Black Flag, I'd be much more interested, that game was amazing.

OK, now we're doing a theme night. In less then 2 months, you won't be able to play Mario Kart 7 online anymore, so all the tracks here are ones that were in Mario Kart 7. For that extra authenticity, I suggest using a character that was playable in Mario Kart 7. No-one cares about Honey Queen. See you at 8.

Moana is one of my favourites from recent times, this looks stunning visually I hope it can live up to the first one.

Well, if I remember right, the only Spirits that don't show on the Spirit Board are the bosses from World of Light (Rathalos, etc.), and the actual fighters themselves, which you get from completing Classic Mode with each one. I assume you've already completed those. But don't forget about alternate characters like Alph, or the Koopalings. You can get those from the shop, or from completing Classic again with that specific costume. Oh right, yeah. Don't forget about the ones you can only get by fusing other spirits together. And obviously, evolve every spirit you can. If you're like @markderoos and I, and you want an actual "living Dex" of all the spirits, this means you'll have to play World of Light again to get the unevolved versions of Dracula and Marx.

Wii Music let me make a depressing version of Happy Birthday, and for that, it was worth every penny!

Wii Music was a notoriously bad game according to many at the time of its release. I thought it was great though, just somewhat lacking in content. Had Nintendo attempted to expand the song list, by either DLC or enabling a way for users to create original melodies to then share with other players for jam sessions, it would've been pretty much perfect I reckon.