Doctor Robotnik's Ring Racers is possibly one of the greatest games I've ever played. It's a kart racing Sonic fan game made in a heavily modified version of the Doom engine, designed like a fighting game. There are immeasurable options, everything has a counter, and everything is purely skill-based. Even the item roulette can be gamed - instead of randomness it cycles through predetermined hardcoded tables that only stop when you want them to. If you don't have an item you can use rings for extra speed, and if you don't have rings you can go for a risky insta-whip (which even overpowers power items like grow and invincibility!). Hits can be DI'd to put you in a more favorable position, if you get karted and lose control for extensive periods of times the respawn mechanics will be more forgiving.
When you first start the game, you're met with an elaborate and charming initial sequence. I've always thought it was exceedingly well made, adding plenty of lore to this game's particular branch of the Sonic timeline and characterizing the main characters well. It even has plenty of secrets to scout for, like a tricky jump into a room that shows off screenshots of cut maps, a great conversation in the spraycan room that few will ever see legitimately, and even a skill check to skip the tutorial in its entirety... Even as someone with plenty of experience with Ring Racers' predecessor SRB2 Kart, I liked going through the test bed for new mechanics and reading explanations for how old ones may have changed. There were sections that were more challenging than others, sure, and I died a couple times in the tutorial - but it was valuable training for real-world conditions that undoubtedly saved me in future real matches. Even when I reached the end, I didn't want to leave as the calming finale track Tidal Chamber began to play.
Many complained about the sheer length of the tutorial, claiming it could go on for an hour or even longer... it really isn't that bad. It's a tutorial for a complex and deep game, they couldn't exactly make it 5 minutes. Mechanics like voltage, tricks, tripwire, e-brake, gachaboms, DI, and insta-whip are not obvious to people who haven't played the game before. The devs have even released a blog post that mentions "Ring Racers is a maximalist game by design and it's a significant departure from kart racing norms." (see Extra Dev Note at the bottom of this page) It's clear that the planning of this tutorial was not taken lightly, and they believed its necessity should not be underestimated.
If you insisted on bypassing the tutorial, there were two main ways to do it. You can follow the bright neon sign that reads "Ready to race? EXIT outta here!! ⬅️" for a race against the Roygbiv Rangers, a group of powerful foes with the same stats as you, or you could open the secret password terminal in the tutorial main menu and enter "gaster" (intended for quickly getting a fresh setup for experienced players). I'm a big fan of the first option, and it really wasn't that hard to do. Even during the first couple days as a relatively unskilled player I was able to do the tutorial skip myself in only three tries, and now I can easily get it consistently. Of course it also serves as a big reminder to those who haven't played the game before that the tutorial is important, if you can't beat them then you can't win real matches. I'm a little more mixed on the second, I know it has to exist to conveniently get setups going and I'm certain I'll need it some day for that exact reason, but the temptation for new players to use it to get past the "boring" and "unneccesary" part of the game is evidently far too strong.
While playing online a few weeks after the game released, I encountered a duo in a netgame. One of them had familiarity with the game, the other refused to touch the tutorial. The experienced player made excuses like "we're adults, we only have so much time to play with our friends" and "right now is bro time" for handing the brand new player the tutorial skip password. As for how this caused the new player's night to go, here's a look at that session's chat logs...
i have no idea how to trick
welp i suck
i got expleded randomyl
also ic ant even finish a race
im so low on points i cant loose anymore
i give up this time man
for whats left of my current happiness
ima go
Needless to say... I do not think the tutorial's framing as "mandatory" was a bad idea.
Ring Racers has an unlock system inspired by games like Kirby Air Ride and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, with a board of challenges that grant rewards. If you feel a challenge is too tough or overly specific it can be skipped with chao keys earned every 5 races, of which you can grind an unlimited amount. Nearly everything in the game is gated behind these challenges including dozens of characters, 100 different character colors, 29 cups, alternate music for some tracks, and various major game modes. The last one in particular really struck a nerve with many, but when you look at it it's actually fairly reasonable. The requirements for major things tended to be rather easy: online play required completing a single grand prix cup, Prison Break mode required two cups, loading addons required five, Time Attack required seven... I actually completed all of those on my first day of playing the game, while some others seemed to do nothing but spend all afternoon complaining about it in the Kart Krew Discord server. Seven cups isn't even a quarter of the game's content!
Especially at launch, people made a massive stink about addons taking "forever" to unlock, I still don't understand that perspective. There were no addons at the time, you could easily play five cups in a night or two and then have the feature unlocked forever. Even at the time, everyone knew just how much of an impact addons could have on the gameplay experience. SRB2 Kart had a popular balance overhaul mod called Juicebox, some maps made use of custom mechanics like gliders, and people were even starting to make custom items. I feel that guiding players to learn how the base game works before giving them the ability to mess with anything was a smart move.
I understand frustrations over Time Attack being an unlockable, but it's important to remember that it runs at Gear 3 speed. The game is balanced such that Gear 2, the highest speed unlocked by default, is roughly equivalent to Mario Kart's 150cc with the faster Gear 3 being like 200cc. I agree with the dev thought process that you should learn mechanics and how to race at high speeds before trying to grind out times, but I can see why people may prefer to learn the game in a heavily controlled environment like time attack. I'm not too worried by it unlocking only after one race in 2.1 and I don't really have any complaints about it.
To clarify, I don't hate 2.1. I actually think some of its changes were inarguably for the better - unlocking all modes immediately when doing either tutorial skip, giving the player more chances througout the tutorial to try that skill check, 3x faster chao key earning are all very welcome additions. I'm not going to act like unlocking anything faster makes the game completely unplayable either. But as someone who downloaded Ring Racers the moment it dropped, sat down, and just played it for fun... I do think something was lost.
I highly recommend reading Kart Krew's Extra Dev Note blog post as an addendum. As a response to player reactions from v2.0, I've always thought that its design decisions were deliberate and was glad to see this confirmed it.