I cannot help and wonder if the whole Novice/Mentor system would even be missed if it just one day disappeared mysteriously.

We didn't start the game with it, we all seemed to get by just fine by playing the game and passively learning, making mistakes, and adjusting.

Heck, Megaman X has possibly one of the best tutorials in gaming history by sneaking in all of the learning instances into... well.. ...playing the game.