For which generations is this true?

Question

I read somewhere that, if I find a trainer with a randomly generated shiny Pokemon (in places like Battle Frontiers), I soft reset to right before I encounter that trainer, and I find a few wild Pokemon, they will have the same personalities as the trainer's Pokemon and one will be shiny. It apparently has something to do with the way personalities are generated. Is it true? For which games is it true?

Comments

I don't think personality values are generated like that but I can't be sure.

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It sounds familiar to me tbh, but I can't remember where I had heard it. This sounds a lot like 3rd generation to me, where the games could be more easily exploited than now. I might've read it off a glitch channel, I can't be sure.

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I read it on a Bulbapedia userpage, but I can't find it anymore. The person said it was Generation 4.

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I remember facing a Shiny Espeon in FRLG (Generation 3) in Battle Tower on Seven Island. I think the Shiny Espeon on that Trainer was permanent (It was his and I would face that shiny each time I faced that opponent)

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I would have thought gen 3 as well, seeing it had lots of glitches especially with soft resetting and shinies and RNG
There is some stuff about so called 'shiny files' in Emerald related to soft resetting, but I don't know if that's what you're after...

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The Pokemon in the trainer tower aren't randomly generated. (or at least, not generated after you start the game)

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This is what I was thinking of when I first heard it. Are you sure its not related to this by any chance? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjqMC_p024A

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It was in Generation 4 and involved personality. I'm sure of that.

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Sorry to comment so long after the last comment, but I can almost certainly confirm it happened in Gen 4. I had that happen once- a dude in one of the Frontier areas (the one with the weird status effect board thingy?) had a shiny Luvdisc. I reset out of anger and later found a shiny. I didn't know if it was pure coincidence until now.

Answer 1

To alleviate this potential problem, the developers decided to create the seed using something that should be different every time you play: the date and time on your Nintendo DS, DSi, or 3DS. By doing some light math on the individual components (year, month, hours, etc.) of the date and time, a "unique" seed is created each time you start the game.

So the soft reset thing won't work unless the time is changed.
source
By the way, this was on Smogon since before I asked this question. Am I seriously the only person here who uses Smogon? Or is everyone else so un-committed to answering Pokebase questions that they're too lazy to look stuff up on Smogon?