Raid Achievements in Pokémon Go

This summer, one of the focus experiences of Pokémon Go is raids. That's already particularly evident thanks to details on this year's Pokémon Go Fest. But it's also evident in another way, as recently raids had gotten a few appearance updates that make them look more attractive. Along with that, raids also got a remarkable new feature, and that would be raid achievements. Now when a raid is completed and won, certain Trainers will be given special honors based on what they did for the raid battle.

Some of these achievements are related to the battle, like dealing the final blow ("Final Strike") or using the most Charged attacks ("Charged and Ready"). Other achievements are related purely to aspects of participation, like wearing certain outfits ("Style Savant") and taking part remotely from very far away ("Traveler"). Regardless of the achievement, only certain Trainers in the raid battle will earn achievements, and those who earn them will only earn a single kind of achievement and not as many of them as possible. One particular concession is that a Trainer that participates in a raid battle by oneself - a solo raid - is almost certain to earn the Final Strike achievement, which is a neat yet slightly boring guarantee.

In fact, there is a certain vagueness in how specific achievements are earned. Once, I've earned the Style Savant achievement but felt I've done nothing special in that regard, and this achievement deals with outfits, which I haven't changed since I've last changed anything (perhaps a useful discussion point for later). Due to the vagueness of the achievements, as well as the diversity of raid circumstances, some experimentation may be warranted to try to earn the most obscure of achievements. As the post regarding the new feature on the official Pokémon Go blog indicates, many circumstances will allow the earning of achievements, but most Trainers will earn only the most common of them, and the obscure ones become a target of sorts. 

Regardless of achievements, they all count towards a new medal, the Raid Expert medal. It takes a total of 500 earned achievements to increase the medal to the platinum level, which means at least that many raids as well. The new medal also becomes another outlet to earn the necessary number of platinum medals for a post 40 level up task, and is therefore useful in that regard. Individual achievements may also be saved as pictures in the same location where Pokémon Go photos get saved. It does seem like the achievements are geared to posterity more than anything else, but at least there's a helpful side to them.

Raids are and have always been important to Pokémon Go since they were introduced some years ago. Therefore, it makes sense that they would be improved as well, at least this time in appearance and with the new achievements feature. Although the feature is neat, it may require some raids to be conducted before the benefit becomes imminent. But then, that may be an incentive to get lots of raids going in order to take a gander at the Pokémon they offer and earn a few or a lot of honors along the way.

One year ago: New PvP Challenge: Premier Cup

Two years ago: Local EX Raid (and Mix-Ups), 7/10/2019

Three years ago: The Currencies of Magikarp Jump

Four years ago: My Trusty NDS and Pokémon Games