I did all the novice and a couple chapters of the story mode, and yeah it's hard, but it never pisses me off. For two reasons, the races are short so who cares if you keep replaying them, and every time I do mess up it's usually my fault and I learn from my mistakes. Sometimes it takes a couple mistakes to learn, but the game isn't cheap hard. It just takes some practice.
I like the boost system also. It opens up more strategy. Harder levels you are going to need your sheilds so you have to decide whether you can make it to the next energy pad without hitting any thing, or play it safe and only boost here and there. All the boosting going on is also why one second you could be in third place then next second you're in 12th place. I like it a lot.
