I have a tool that I made to extract the animation frames of a given battle effect. It then creates the entire animation as a huge texture.
Here is a link to Ragnarok (http://i.imgur.com/xDYWl06.png) (warning the texture is 1920x2040)
Here is a link to Storm Ray (http://i.imgur.com/pTQJ726.png) (warning the texture is 1920x1560)
So my question is, does Golden Sun actually handle battle effects dynamically to reduce memory size? The linked images are ~300KB so after a few effects the size total would get quite large.
Oh, animations? Um, from my understanding at least, textures like that are generally static, as are palettes with at least three methods of setting a palette in a standard animation (texture-based, element-based, and code-based). Other effects, such as particle placing and movement, are a little more dynamic with a set pattern or trajectory they have to adhere to. I think it really depends on the animation as well though; some may be more random than others.
A really good example of "random but following a set pattern" is Avimander's Star Mine. I think. I'm still getting used to animation stuff (and am currently on hiatus to deal with assignments and the like), but I remember the orbs following a set trajectory with random variations that made it so the animation didn't look exactly the same all the time. Particles too. What is also interesting is that these trajectories seem to be set in advance in RAM sometimes. I actually had to give that animation more space in RAM in order to add more orbs and explosions that would activate properly. I hope I'm explaining this clearly enough!
Edit: It's worth pointing out, but the 3-ring and other casting animation(s) are entirely separate from things like Ragnarok and the like. Their palettes also also element-specific, like some standard animations. I think: 0 - Venus, 1 - Mercury, 2 - Mars, 3+ - Jupiter (non-elemental spells will be purple like Jupiter by default, although you can technically add more palette options if you can find the space for them).
So some animations are texture/sprites and others particles?
Generally, yeah. There's also a lot of overlap though, and a number of animations also utilize screen/background and/or 3D effects in some way (i.e. Geode, various summons). Plus, depending on how you look at it, particles are also generally considered a special type of texture by the game. Different format I think, but still.