Your "One More Try" Moments

The first time I heard the term "One More Try moment" was from the YouTuber and countdown community member CjsZero01 waaaaaaay back in 2012, basically it describes those particular moments in gaming where you essentially find yourself repeatedly failing at something over and over again but refusing to get discouraged and instead remaining absolutely determined to see it through to the very end even if it means aimlessly throwing yourself at the same exact obstacle/puzzle/enemy/boss/whatever for several hours on end until eventually you advance forward.

You know it in your veins that you are on the very cusp of victory and turning back now simply won't do as you are already in way too deep and quitting would be very anti-climatic and sully the mood, you slowly find yourself becoming more and more proficient at avoiding hazards and memorizing the way that enemies come at you until you inevitably blaze past it all to reach your goal as a wave of euphoria washes over you knowing that you succeeded and bested the challenge at hand. It's a mighty powerful feeling indeed.

But what are some of your "One More Try" moments?
(I'll post mine in a little bit.)

Bowser's Inside Story's final boss
after a month of trying (when i was like 10) it turned out all I had to do was press the x and y buttons at the same time, which the game never explained
fuck you nintendo

Superstar Saga final boss. That boss is so hard, even in the 3DS version.

All of Celeste's B-Sides. I find myself on the teetering edge of thinking "Wow, this game is incredibly well-designed, all the mechanics are natural and the gameplay lends itself to them" and "**** you, Mark and all your stupid ****ing friends". I just play each room over and over again placidly in my bed, no matter how infuriated I get.

Quite unhealthy, really. But as I slip through room after room and see the pink and blue blocks pop out at the very end, I know I didn't waste my time.

Two more B-sides left.

Specter Knight, the Boss Rush and the Final Boss of Shovel Knight.

Pretty much the entirety of Cuphead, but the ones that had that factor in full force were:
Cagney Carnation, Grim Matchstick, Rumor Honeybottoms, Werner Wermen and Sally Stageplay.

I had a few of those just yesterday when I was playing Super Mario Maker levels folks sent me on a stream. In particular, one level in which the first trick was a mid-air shell jump, I was at that for about half an hour, just trying to do a midair over and over. I knew I wouldn't beat the level, but I refused to give up until I nailed the midair once. I finally nailed it, and promptly missed the Koopa I was supposed to land on, but who cares, I did the midair and that counts as a victory in my book :P

Most recently for me:

~The Battlerock's Garbage Dump star in Super Mario Galaxy, apparently Dreadnought Galaxy also has a star like this which I'm not looking forward to. (Nor the fact that I'll have to do both BGD and DGB again as Luigi if I want to go for 100% later on...) You're only provided with thirty seconds to clear the piles of trash using the Bob-omb's blast ratios and you best make every second count since the Bob-ombs seem to like take their sweet time when it comes to detonation. I was stuck on this one for quite a bit until I thought to myself "What if... I took a Bob-omb and tossed it, took another Bob-omb and tossed it close to the vicinity of the first Bob-omb and so on to create a chain reaction of explosions?" and sure enough I came up with a strategy to save some time. (Although I was still cutting it pretty close.)

~Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1's special stages. Basically it take the premise of Sonic the Hedgehog 1's special stages with the trippy rotating mazes but instead of controlling Sonic, you control how the maze rotates and it's up to you to guide Sonic to the Chaos Emerald before the timer runs out. Those dastardly "GOAL" spheres also make a comeback here to trick unsuspecting players into being snared by their devious trap and booted out of the special stage so it's best to watch out for those. Some of the later ones have pretty short time limits too so try to book it to the Emerald as fast as you can without getting flung around all over the place by those pesky bumpers. I still haven't finished the last two yet but I will soon enough.

You should also touch the lying Bob-ombs before you throw the one you're carrying. This will cause them to go off, so you can use those seconds they take to toss your bomb and pick up the ones you walked next to.

Thunder light Ganon's Battle in Breath Of The Wild.
The Super Mario Odyssey Final Boss.
The Sonic Forces Final Boss.

Literally every death in Fortnite. Gotta get that chicken dinner

Princess Mario said:

You should also touch the lying Bob-ombs before you throw the one you're carrying. This will cause them to go off, so you can use those seconds they take to toss your bomb and pick up the ones you walked next to.

Click to expand...

I also found a pretty nifty trick for Dreadnought's Garbage Dump, those spots on the ground where you can shoot a star bit at to make a coin pop out are essentially markers for where you're supposed to throw the Bob-ombs at.

Super Mario 3D World - Champion's Road: I had a lot of trouble with that level because I wasn't able to figure out how to get past the Beep Blocks, so I had to resort to Tanooki Peach, who has the property of being able to float in addition to the Tanooki's slow descent. Mind you, it's still incredibly difficult but it make the entire game a lot easier. Because of my reliance to Peach, I decided to use other controllers to make sure that I have other characters besides Peach get to the flagpole, therefore I need to go through the entire ordeal twice. I did it twice with first Mario and Toad, and then Luigi and Rosalina. By comparison, I didn't have nearly much trouble in the other two tough levels, the Boss battle and Mystery Room ones.

Geometry Dash is a game so difficult that I settled for the first six levels completed, which are incredibly difficult even as auto-runners go, that I gave up playing it after completing the sixth level, because I felt like my limit is reached, and I am not bothered to play this game for eternity to master it.

Thank you for reading.

Back in the day, when Explorers of Sky came out, Primal Dialga and the Darkrai battle were certainly a one more try moment for me. I remember picking up that game and playing it during every spare moment I had just because I was so determined to beat those two fights even as I was defeated again and again.

In the original and the remake, the fight with Cackletta's Soul would definitely apply... those spinning arms. It was always so easy to get flustered with that attack. If it hit even once, I would lose my focus and rhythm and just get hammered. There were times I'd get to the end of the fight and be doing really well, but that arm attack would just end me.

Actually, really any boss (RPG or otherwise) who has one particularly annoying attack or strategy would apply. If there's one particular move or attack pattern or what-have-you, it makes me particularly determined to the beat whatever is going on. I suppose that, with Luigi's Purple Coins, you can add particularly annoying stages to that list.

All those times when I press "rematch" in Toad Rally in Super Mario Run are also literally "one more try" moments.

In all seriousness, there are two Mario levels I've cleared that stood out to me in difficulty. The first is Culmina Crater in Super Mario Odyssey. But there’s another level I've cleared that’s way harder than that, and it’s called Grandmaster Galaxy from Super Mario Galaxy 2. I actually revisited both missions in that level, ana although I cleared them eventually, both were extremely difficult levels (especially the second mission).