Frappe Snowland

So I looked up the meaning of the word "Frappe", because I like to properly prepare for these strat-writing sessions that I do. Afterall, there's no point in me giving you lots of helpful advice, if I don't even know what the track name means. Anyway, I got this: "A frozen fruit-flavored dessert made with shaved ice, similar to sherbet." So, in a way - A completely confusing way - this track might have been named Sherbet Snowland. It's little things like this that keep me awake at night. That, and the neighbor's new dog. Mostly it's the dog.


This Snow Statue is Mysterious. Mama Mia!


For many years, we noble karters liked to start this track with a nice clean MT around the first corner like civilised God-fearing folk. Then one day, a stranger appeared and lo, did he say "This corner is an abomination! Never again shall thee take it so". He spoke kinda funny, and he had some strange ideas, but this one happened to be good, and we all quickly adopted it. It became known as the Friedstart, after its inventor Friedrich Nietzsche, and it cuts valuable hundreths off your time. Or maybe his name was Michael something. He went to live in a Valley soon afterwards, or so the Legend goes, and we never saw him again.

So, the key to this start is to hold A+B at the same moment where you would normally hold just A, then hold right with the stick to quickly turn, and then hop into a normal right-facing slide, going straight over the snow, and passing quite close to a tree. You should pass it on the left hand side. You should release your MT when you return to the road. After a short glide, - most of which you're turning left for - you hop into a left-facing MT around this next corner. With a lot of practice and testing against ghosts, you can judge what initial angle for your friedstart works best for you. Also, whilst that description might sound like I'm trying to get you to juggle plates whilst spinning balls, it's actually a lot simpler than that.

The release of this last MT will have you going one of two ways. Either to the left, or the right of the first snowman you see. On the right, there's a very small gap between the snowman and the snow, but this is the more natural path than the one to the left. The problem of course, is that the most natural of all the paths is to run straight into the snowman and explode into the air (just like in real life!) Don't worry though, if you wait long enough, the snowman will creepily grow back up out of the ground. This is probably the scariest thing in the whole game. Yes, even more scary than the flying fish.


One of the many you will hit


The next corner is one of the few corners you have to hop around, and this track has two of those corners. I can only assume the hopping is to appease the giant snow statues. Work up an MT as you would for a normal corner, and once you've released it, time your hops to stay close to the snow without actually touching it. Depending on your angle of entry and the moment you start, this can be a very slow and measured hopping, or a more frenetic style. Both will please the statue.


Yoshi is pleased


Once you've finished hopping, you need to jump almost immediately into an MT around the next corner to the right. I say "almost immediately", but I really mean "any hesistation is just wasted time as your hopping has completely killed any MT glide speed, so stop reading this, travel backwards through time and hop into that MT". After this, you just need to glide a little and make a quick sharp turning correction to the right to prepare you for the next corner. Snow touches around this track hurt quite a bit, and it's very easy on the hopping corner and the corners after it to pinch a bit of snow. When in doubt, it's better to be a little wide than a little snow. The next MT around the corner to the left is easy, so just do it quickly and try to be driving as straight as possible on this next piece of road.

This is where a few annoying things can happen. All you have to do is to drive in a straight line, but occasionally the road coming up to the small ramp can cause you to slow a little, like the road deliberately trying to trip you up. The best way I've found to stop this is to make no corrections in your line when driving up to it.


Don't make any sudden movements!


The second thing that can go wrong is that you get a bad bounce on landing. This is much more likely if you do a little pre-jump just before the top of the ramp, so I don't really advise doing this. It does gain a little time if done without incident, but it will make your life more annoying than usual. What ever way you end up landing from this ramp, jump immediately into an MT around the left corner and try to end up pointing either slightly to the left of the 2 left-most snowmen, or slightly to the right of them. Pointing straight at them is rude, and they won't like it.


This is the line you should be aiming for





This sign is obnoxiously large. Where could it want us to go?


Next comes one of the most difficult parts in all of non-shortcut racing. Once you pass these 2 snowmen, you must jump into a left-facing slide and fire your shroom. You must then ride up the side of the hill without going out of bounds, release your MT and land perfectly between the 2 snowmen below. Whilst doing this, you also need to bake a souffle, memorise the first 30 digits of pi, and recite the alphabet of your choice backwards. If you do all this correctly, the game might reward you with a nice semi-pro time.

Instead of sliding in a straight line from the bottom of the hill to the release point, I like to arc a little out to the right and turn in to the left near the top. It will make landing in the right spot more consistent. This is something only practice can help you with. Most of the time you'll land to the left of the snowmen, or to the right of them and have to travel over a little bit of snow. Going to the left is slightly better than the right. Landing right in the middle is ideal. Landing on a snowman means you're gonna have a bad time.


A place you'll never be. The perfect landing spot.


The next MT is an easy one. I won't even describe it. The one after it is not. Actually, it's an SSMT, and the first one you'll have to do on this track. After all the effort you went through with the hopping and the statues and the snowmen and the baking, it can be easy to imagine you're home-free at this point, especially if you got a great landing from the jump. Unfortunately this SSMT is about to kill your run. Perform it either to the right or to the left. Just try to finish it before hitting the wall to either side. After that there's a unique corner that requires finesse that you don't have, to navigate around. You must release an MT going into it, and then time some hops around it so that you don't hit into the wall, and don't go on a vacation to widesville (It's a nice place, and they sure love their food, but you have no time for that right now). Whilst the other hopping corner has a consistent feel to it which making timing the hops easier, this one has a very small flat part to it, which makes overhopping straight into the wall an issue. To make matters more complicated, you only need to hop for the first part of the corner, the 2nd part of the corner is where you need to transition into an MT. So, MT in, hop 2 or 3 times to avoid going wide, then get an MT to finish it off.

At this point you have only one turn left. The key to this is to release the final MT a little earlier than you feel comfortable with, and then correct with a quick adjustment right. On lap 1 and 2, hop into a final SSMT once you're on the bridge. There's one specific point close to where the bridge begins where hopping and landing on it will cause you to fall straight through it. You'll learn quickly where this point is and how to time things to avoid doing it. On lap 3 you can either drive straight from the previous corner to the line, or do a quick SSMT. I don't think there's conclusive evidence to which is actually quicker. After the finish line on the first few laps, MT normally around the first corner, and then MT twice around the 2nd. MTing twice won't seem very natural, but those self-repairing snowmen don't seem very natural either.

The strat for the fastest lap is slightly unusual, as you start the lap off-road. Specifically you should start up on the snow to your right, and aim just to the right of the tree by the finish line. Before crossing the extended imaginary finish line, you should have already hopped into a right-facing slide and used your first shroom. This should take you all the way to the second corner. You'll have to be extremely careful with the out of bounds area that threatens to wreck your lap as it begins. People who don't mind messing up their cartridge with shortcut times might wish to use the shortcut to help set up a lap attempt more quickly.


The invisible out of bounds monster awaits. Also Yoshi.


The second shroom for a lap attempt happens right after this second corner. The ideal line from the previous corner should take you to the left of the snowman. Just as you pass this snowman, jump into a left-facing slide and shroom, and try to cut as much of this hopping corner as you can. The best way to do this is with carefully timed hops. Sometimes it can feel like you've taken off a much bigger chunk of the corner than usual. The important thing is to quickly get a right-facing MT upon landing. The third shroom should be used in the normal 3lap strategy spot.

That's it for this track. Avoid the snow when not shrooming. Avoid the out of bounds areas when shrooming. Avoid the snowmen at all times, and be careful not to anger the local statues.


He's always watching you