In my view, Pokemon Black 2 and White 2 are the greatest games in the series. I may be slightly biased as they were the first games I owned, but the vast postgame content has always appealed to me as well as the approach of making the games a direct sequel, rather than a remake/improved version of their predecessor.
In 2020 amidst the pandemic, I decided to restart my Black 2 save file (I am not very sentimental about my childhood saves, at that time I hard reset readily) and play through the games once more. In this process I had the idea to complete the Medal Rally. I knew that it was likely impossible, but I never even really attempted it before and wanted to try.
To briefly explain the Medal Rally, it is an achievement system to commemorate completing various tasks in the game, ranging from simple to nightmarish in difficulty and tediousness. There are a total of 255 medals available, divided into 5 categories namely Adventure, Entertainment, Battle, Challenge and Special.
At the start I made slow progress. I had collected a few medals but only incidentally as part of ordinary gameplay, until in 2022 I joined a Discord Community for the ‘Poke Classic Network’ who have restored online connectivity for Generations 4 & 5 and run a GTS Website. In one and a half years I had attained 150/255 medals. Between April and July 2022 I reached 243/255. This left me with only the truly impossible medals, categorised by me as the ‘Game Sync’ medals and the ‘Funfest’ medals. In designing these medals, GameFreak failed to future-proof the Medal Rally as they cannot be obtained any longer, or so it is thought.
To begin, I will list some tedious but not too interesting medals to give an idea of the eclectic assortment of tasks one must do to arrive at 255/255.
Some More Interesting Medals
It is unfortunate that there is no authentic way to obtain these medals any more, because the website with flash minigames is long gone. Nonetheless it was interesting to make use of this defunct feature.
The Funfest Medals
By now infamous for their extreme unobtainability, when I first started the Medal Rally in 2022, I could not find any particularly helpful Funfest guides and so I had to figure out the best strategies by myself. In order to reach Black and White Level 30 in the Entree for the Trainer Card star and to acquire the Funfest Complete medal, I tested every Funfest mission available and with some friends concluded that by far the best mission for both efficient Entree level grinding and maximum score is Find Lost Items, as it has many sparkling items all across the map and lasts 5 minutes with no score limit. With this in mind, I tested many different routes and eventually concluded that by far the best place to start was Castelia City, which often has as many as 15 items and then to fly to Nimbasa City followed by Driftveil Drawbridge, time usually runs out in Driftveil City. With this strategy I was able to consistently reach 60-70 score by playing on 2 DS. I knew that if at least 15 people gathered with 30 B2W2 cartridges, then the medals were possible.
For a while I was content with 243, then after Entralinked was released, 249 medals. But in 2024 the opportunity presented itself to attempt the elusive Funfest medals. A few people led by NickPlayeZ and Erin were interested in meeting up at EUIC and Gamescom to try some Funfests. At EUIC 2024 we reached a score of 330 with 12 cartridges, easily surpassing the 10 People Funfest and Scored 100 medals, but the Scored 1,000 was still far out of reach. Despite having a nightmare with Deutsche Bahn (my train was running very late both in the outward and return journeys, I only made my connection because the next train was also heavily delayed. For some reason my train to Cologne ended up going first to the middle of nowhere, stopping for a while and ultimately arrived in Cologne over 2 hours late, thanks DB!), I also attended the meetup at Gamescom beating our previous record to obtain a score of 390 with 13 cartridges. It was disappointing to fail to achieve our goal of 1000 points, but the meetups were very enjoyable nonetheless.
EUIC 2025 had no Funfest meetup, instead we played some retro Pokemon and organised a Generation 3 VGC (Orre) tournament. Ahead of EUIC 2026 we decided to double our efforts to promote the Funfest meetup. This was greatly helped by the popularity of the ‘Retro Shiny Challenge’ at TPCi events bringing many retro Pokemon enthusiasts together. The Retro Shiny Challenge (organised by Chazingdra), Funfest Meetup (organised by Nick and Erin) and Orre Tournament (organised by Mosquito and myself) were to make a triple header at EUIC 2026, which maximised our chance of success.
On Saturday, the 14th of February 2026 I took the train headed to ExCeL London for EUIC. I had met up with Mosquito, Nick and Erin the previous day and felt hopeful about our chances. We were assigned a table by the TPCi staff at the last minute, which was slightly concerning. However, our organisation efforts had created effective communication channels to spread the word and so by 12pm noon there was a sizable crowd ready to Shiny hunt. I was not too interested in the event and so with Nick, I attempted some challenging 3 star Funfest missions which I had not yet completed. One of which was ‘Take a Walk with Eggs!’ in which Nick serendipitously hatched a Shiny Magikarp!
After the Shiny Hunt ended, many people left to engage in other activities at the event, leaving only a core of hardcore Funfesters, however the crowd still seemed large enough to merit a success if we had a good run. After getting everyone ready (including myself who had forgotten that my 3rd unused game had not unlocked the Fly HM required for the optimal route, having to hastily trade myself something to complete the mission), we began the first attempt. We had a shaky start with many not being familiar with Funfest Missions, but we quickly surpassed 30 People in the funfest, and the score hastily rose and shattered our previous record. This was not enough sadly and we fell short of the 1000 goal.
Our second attempt was much better, the items were more plentiful and more people managed to join. It was close, everyone had to put in their best effort and after the mission ended, we waited for 60 seconds to allow the scores to sync between systems, after the suspense we proceeded to the summary screen and I heard exuberant cheering. We had exceeded 1000 points in the Funfest and I finally had completed the Medal Rally in Pokemon Black 2.
But not only I, as another participant in the Funfest meetup, Atem91, had also accumulated all but the elusive Funfest medals. Mosquito had also very nearly completed the Medal Rally, consequently Mosquito decided to record the three of us collecting our final medals* (Atem and I soft reset afterwards, Mosquito still has yet to obtain the medals requiring the defunct Game Sync).
And with that my 4+ year journey to complete the Medal Rally ended. It was a great finale, meeting up with so many other B2W2 fans and working jointly to carry out the most exclusive achievement in any Pokemon game.
In 2020 amidst the pandemic, I decided to restart my Black 2 save file (I am not very sentimental about my childhood saves, at that time I hard reset readily) and play through the games once more. In this process I had the idea to complete the Medal Rally. I knew that it was likely impossible, but I never even really attempted it before and wanted to try.
To briefly explain the Medal Rally, it is an achievement system to commemorate completing various tasks in the game, ranging from simple to nightmarish in difficulty and tediousness. There are a total of 255 medals available, divided into 5 categories namely Adventure, Entertainment, Battle, Challenge and Special.
At the start I made slow progress. I had collected a few medals but only incidentally as part of ordinary gameplay, until in 2022 I joined a Discord Community for the ‘Poke Classic Network’ who have restored online connectivity for Generations 4 & 5 and run a GTS Website. In one and a half years I had attained 150/255 medals. Between April and July 2022 I reached 243/255. This left me with only the truly impossible medals, categorised by me as the ‘Game Sync’ medals and the ‘Funfest’ medals. In designing these medals, GameFreak failed to future-proof the Medal Rally as they cannot be obtained any longer, or so it is thought.
To begin, I will list some tedious but not too interesting medals to give an idea of the eclectic assortment of tasks one must do to arrive at 255/255.
| Medal Name | How to obtain | Notes |
| National Catcher | Complete the National Pokedex | |
| Super Rich | Spend 10,000,000 Pokedollars at shops | |
| 10 Followers | Gain 10 followers in the Pokemon Musical | This requires 100+ musicals won, musicals are just mindless tedium. |
| Dowsing Wizard | Find 150 hidden items | |
| Rail Enthusiast | Learn about all 11 types of trains at Anville Town | Each train only appears on particular days each month, except the Blue train which appears 5 days each year. |
| Heavy Traffic | Reach a total of 1000 passerby | Not very interesting, just Soft Reset and Save.. 300+ times (or fewer if you have more carts and systems). |
| Born to Battle | Complete 100 Link Battles | |
| 1,000 Wins | Battle 1000 times in Black Tower or White Treehollow | You can get this as a byproduct of Money/EXP grinding. |
| Cruise Connoisseur | Go on 10 Royal Unova cruises | |
| Exam Genius | Attempt the Battle Test 50 times | |
| Great Trade-Up | Complete 100 Link Trades | |
| Global Connection | Register 32 Friend Codes in the Pal Pad | Surprisingly one of the last medals I got, you have to actually interact with some to register them. |
| Ferris Wheel Fan | Ride the Ferris wheel with all nine possible guests | Including Curtis/Yancy |
| Avenue of Fame | Reach Join Avenue Level 10 | |
| Cult Classic Star | Act in all Pokestar Studios Movies to achieve the Strange Ending | You must complete all Movies twice, first to achieve the Happy Ending, and second the Strange Ending, I found this guide invaluable. |
| Supreme Challenger | Defeat the Pokemon League with a monotype team for all types | Using one dual type Pokemon clears two types in one run. |
Some More Interesting Medals
- Best Minigamer: Play the Xtransceiver balloon minigames 100 times
- All Types Champ: Complete the PWT Type Expert Tournaments
- Sweet Dreamer: Catch 100 Pokemon in Entree Forest
It is unfortunate that there is no authentic way to obtain these medals any more, because the website with flash minigames is long gone. Nonetheless it was interesting to make use of this defunct feature.
The Funfest Medals
By now infamous for their extreme unobtainability, when I first started the Medal Rally in 2022, I could not find any particularly helpful Funfest guides and so I had to figure out the best strategies by myself. In order to reach Black and White Level 30 in the Entree for the Trainer Card star and to acquire the Funfest Complete medal, I tested every Funfest mission available and with some friends concluded that by far the best mission for both efficient Entree level grinding and maximum score is Find Lost Items, as it has many sparkling items all across the map and lasts 5 minutes with no score limit. With this in mind, I tested many different routes and eventually concluded that by far the best place to start was Castelia City, which often has as many as 15 items and then to fly to Nimbasa City followed by Driftveil Drawbridge, time usually runs out in Driftveil City. With this strategy I was able to consistently reach 60-70 score by playing on 2 DS. I knew that if at least 15 people gathered with 30 B2W2 cartridges, then the medals were possible.
For a while I was content with 243, then after Entralinked was released, 249 medals. But in 2024 the opportunity presented itself to attempt the elusive Funfest medals. A few people led by NickPlayeZ and Erin were interested in meeting up at EUIC and Gamescom to try some Funfests. At EUIC 2024 we reached a score of 330 with 12 cartridges, easily surpassing the 10 People Funfest and Scored 100 medals, but the Scored 1,000 was still far out of reach. Despite having a nightmare with Deutsche Bahn (my train was running very late both in the outward and return journeys, I only made my connection because the next train was also heavily delayed. For some reason my train to Cologne ended up going first to the middle of nowhere, stopping for a while and ultimately arrived in Cologne over 2 hours late, thanks DB!), I also attended the meetup at Gamescom beating our previous record to obtain a score of 390 with 13 cartridges. It was disappointing to fail to achieve our goal of 1000 points, but the meetups were very enjoyable nonetheless.
EUIC 2025 had no Funfest meetup, instead we played some retro Pokemon and organised a Generation 3 VGC (Orre) tournament. Ahead of EUIC 2026 we decided to double our efforts to promote the Funfest meetup. This was greatly helped by the popularity of the ‘Retro Shiny Challenge’ at TPCi events bringing many retro Pokemon enthusiasts together. The Retro Shiny Challenge (organised by Chazingdra), Funfest Meetup (organised by Nick and Erin) and Orre Tournament (organised by Mosquito and myself) were to make a triple header at EUIC 2026, which maximised our chance of success.
On Saturday, the 14th of February 2026 I took the train headed to ExCeL London for EUIC. I had met up with Mosquito, Nick and Erin the previous day and felt hopeful about our chances. We were assigned a table by the TPCi staff at the last minute, which was slightly concerning. However, our organisation efforts had created effective communication channels to spread the word and so by 12pm noon there was a sizable crowd ready to Shiny hunt. I was not too interested in the event and so with Nick, I attempted some challenging 3 star Funfest missions which I had not yet completed. One of which was ‘Take a Walk with Eggs!’ in which Nick serendipitously hatched a Shiny Magikarp!
After the Shiny Hunt ended, many people left to engage in other activities at the event, leaving only a core of hardcore Funfesters, however the crowd still seemed large enough to merit a success if we had a good run. After getting everyone ready (including myself who had forgotten that my 3rd unused game had not unlocked the Fly HM required for the optimal route, having to hastily trade myself something to complete the mission), we began the first attempt. We had a shaky start with many not being familiar with Funfest Missions, but we quickly surpassed 30 People in the funfest, and the score hastily rose and shattered our previous record. This was not enough sadly and we fell short of the 1000 goal.
Our second attempt was much better, the items were more plentiful and more people managed to join. It was close, everyone had to put in their best effort and after the mission ended, we waited for 60 seconds to allow the scores to sync between systems, after the suspense we proceeded to the summary screen and I heard exuberant cheering. We had exceeded 1000 points in the Funfest and I finally had completed the Medal Rally in Pokemon Black 2.
But not only I, as another participant in the Funfest meetup, Atem91, had also accumulated all but the elusive Funfest medals. Mosquito had also very nearly completed the Medal Rally, consequently Mosquito decided to record the three of us collecting our final medals* (Atem and I soft reset afterwards, Mosquito still has yet to obtain the medals requiring the defunct Game Sync).
And with that my 4+ year journey to complete the Medal Rally ended. It was a great finale, meeting up with so many other B2W2 fans and working jointly to carry out the most exclusive achievement in any Pokemon game.
None of this would have been possible without help from the incredible people I met in pursuing this goal, I would like to thank:
Everyone who helped me in the PCN Discord, I would not have even started this quest without the community around these classic games and in particular to the developers of the PokeClassic GTS and WiFi service
kuroppoi for developing Entralinked, until Entralinked came out in 2024 this was literally impossible
All the EUIC and Gamescom 2024 attendees, I really enjoyed seeing everyone even if we were not successful in achieving the goal on our attempts together
All the EUIC 2026 Funfest attendees, it was lovely to meet all of you and due to how close the 2nd mission was, if anyone had not been present we may have just barely missed out
In particular thank you to Mirin who at EUIC very kindly gifted me the hand painted on canvas Politoed, I really appreciate the effort and love how it looks so I am now using as my pfp
MosquitoVGC for organising the Orre EUIC tournaments with me, I am really pleased that they went well and it was great to see you in person
Chazingdra for organising the Retro Shiny Challenge at EUIC this year and Erin for organsing the Funfest meetup
My biggest thanks have to go to NickPlayeZ who has been the driving force in organsing the Funfest meetups in Europe since 2024, see you next year!
Everyone who helped me in the PCN Discord, I would not have even started this quest without the community around these classic games and in particular to the developers of the PokeClassic GTS and WiFi service
kuroppoi for developing Entralinked, until Entralinked came out in 2024 this was literally impossible
All the EUIC and Gamescom 2024 attendees, I really enjoyed seeing everyone even if we were not successful in achieving the goal on our attempts together
All the EUIC 2026 Funfest attendees, it was lovely to meet all of you and due to how close the 2nd mission was, if anyone had not been present we may have just barely missed out
In particular thank you to Mirin who at EUIC very kindly gifted me the hand painted on canvas Politoed, I really appreciate the effort and love how it looks so I am now using as my pfp
MosquitoVGC for organising the Orre EUIC tournaments with me, I am really pleased that they went well and it was great to see you in person
Chazingdra for organising the Retro Shiny Challenge at EUIC this year and Erin for organsing the Funfest meetup
My biggest thanks have to go to NickPlayeZ who has been the driving force in organsing the Funfest meetups in Europe since 2024, see you next year!
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