Pokemon is a series known for offering players a wealth of things to do once they've beaten the main story. Whether it's shiny hunting, competitive battling, or simply catching 'em all to complete the dex, it's easy to sink further hours into a Pokemon game once the credits have rolled.

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One aspect of the series that often goes underappreciated, however, is Ribbons. These serve as awards granted to individual Pokemon for impressive feats, and while some are as simple as just beating the League, others require a lot more work. Here are the ten trickiest Ribbons to earn throughout the series.

10 The Ability Ribbon

pokemon diamond pearl platinum battle frontier

Almost every battle facility in the series will reward Pokemon with ribbons for excellent performances, but not all battle facilities are created equal. Sinnoh's Battle Tower is full of enemy teams who show no mercy in employing pretty scary strategies against you.

A whopping 49 consecutive wins will be required if you want the Ribbon, and your streak will culminate against the formidable tower boss, Palmer (Barry's dad). You fight him halfway through as well, so you'll need a strong team if you want to make it all the way.

9 The Victory Ribbon

pokemon emerald battle frontier

Like Gen Four's battle facilities, Hoenn sports a Battle Tower that is more grueling than most. Generation Three's Battle Tower is a particularly brutal gauntlet when compared to its successors, so beating it is no mean feat.

On top of that, the physical/special split isn't a thing in the Gen Three games, rendering many Pokemon pretty useless and making it so that your options in building a team are substantially more limited. All these factors combine to make earning the Victory Ribbon (or its level 50 equivalent, the Winning Ribbon) a serious challenge.

8 The National Ribbon

pokemon xd gale of darkness purified croconaw

While the tasks required to earn the National Ribbon are more tedious than difficult, this Ribbon is obtained in the Orre region, meaning you'd need a GameCube or Wii, and a copy of Pokemon Colosseum or XD: Gale of Darkness to be able to get it.

Assuming you have the necessary hardware, you need to steal an enemy trainer's Shadow Pokemon (which itself is not necessarily an easy task) and purify it, which can take a very long time. Regardless though, the biggest challenge is just tracking down the old games in the current day.

7 The Effort Ribbon

pokemon bdsp vitamins

This Ribbon is obtainable in most games, but as the name suggests, obtaining it requires some work - it's earned by showing a Pokemon with maxed out EVs to an NPC. EV stands for Effort Value, and is essentially a stat gained every time your Pokemon defeats another.

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Maxed EVs top out at 510, meaning you'll potentially have to knock out that many Pokemon to earn the Ribbon. The only game in which this task gets easier is Sword and Shield, where Vitamins can be used to max EVs, though even that is a costly process.

6 The Earth Ribbon

pokemon xd gale of darkness mt battle

Another Orre region Ribbon, the Earth Ribbon requires you to not only have the old games and hardware, but to defeat a gauntlet of 100 consecutive double battles on the fittingly named Mt. Battle. The enemy NPCs won't hold back in using some pretty clever doubles strategies on you, either.

Any battle gauntlet is hard, but the double battle element adds another level of difficulty to this challenge, as does the lack of a physical/special split. Combined, these factors make Mt. Battle one of the hardest battle gauntlet Ribbons in the series.

5 The Master Rank Ribbon

pokemon sword and shield online battle

This Ribbon is unique among the many Ribbons of the Pokemon series, as it requires you to win a battle against another human player. Specifically, a player in the Master Ball tier of Sword and Shield's online battles. As you'd expect, players at the top tier of online competitive are pretty good at Pokemon.

Even getting to Master Ball rank is a struggle, but at least once you're there, loss protection means you can't de-rank. You'll still have your work cut out for you, though, coming up against the very best players and Pokemon the current meta has to offer.

4 The Gorgeous Royal Ribbon

pokemon bdsp ribbon syndicate

Obtainable in Sinnoh or ORAS's Hoenn, this Ribbon doesn't require you to nail any Contests or grind battles for hours. You simply walk into the Ribbon Syndicate and buy it. That's it, no catches. The Ribbon is yours for just one million Poke Dollars.

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Farming money in Sinnoh is fortunately quite easy, but grinding out the required $999,999 will be a chore nonetheless. To even unlock the option to buy the Gorgeous Royal Ribbon, you first have to buy two prior Ribbons for $10,000 and $100,000, bringing the total cost to an eye-watering $1.11 million.

3 The Artist Ribbon

pokemon emerald contest hall

Hoenn's Contest Hall can reward the player with many Ribbons, most of which are obtained simply by winning contests. The Artist Ribbon, however, is a little different. It requires you to not only win a Master rank contest, but to do so with an exceptionally high score.

This basically comes down to chance, as there's only so much you can do before it's in the hands of RNG. It'll take you several runs of the Contest for sure, making for a frustrating Ribbon to earn.

2 The World Ability Ribbon

sinnoh battle tower

Back to Generation Four's Battle Frontier, where the World Ability Ribbon took advantage of the DS's online capability. The teams you come up against in this section of the Battle Frontier are made up of other real players' teams.

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This is a fun idea in theory, but unfortunately not everyone plays by the rules. Particularly notorious among the many hacked Pokemon you'll encounter are the No Guard Machamps with moves like Fissure, guaranteed to OHKO your Pokemon if you can't outspeed and take them out first.

1 The Multi Ability Ribbon

pokemon platinum barry double battle

Generation Four's Battle Frontier gave you the option to team up with a friend over the DS's local wireless functionality to take on NPCs in a series of double battles. If you don't have a friend available, though, you can head for the NPC multi tower.

This pairs you up with an NPC to take on a similar double battle gauntlet, and anyone who's fought alongside Cheryl, Riley, Marley, or Barry knows exactly how annoying Generation Four's NPC ally trainers can be. Your hopes of success rest on an unpredictable and downright unhelpful AI.

Next: Pokemon: Moves you Didn't Know Could Be Used Outside Of Battle