After some further digging, I think I have the definitive solution. The code file in the OP seems to have something to do with running various animation scripts (includes hits from monsters, various weapons, shields, cape dodges etc.). Here is the location of the shield block animation script:
D9/9F68: F0 02 92 05 93 02 82 C6 97 78 78 78 78 93 00 FF
The FF at the end tells the script to terminate. I think similar to the animation scripts in FF6, these bytes are assigned to various animation effects (e.g. 93 00 seems to be the "reset" from shield block pose or other poses, 93 02 might be for getting into a pose, etc.). 78 seems to just be "wait". If I remove some of those 78s from the script, I get a shorter animation. That seems to be all there is to it.
At some point, if it doesn't already exist, someone should start a document on FF5 animation script bytes.
EDIT: After even further investigation, I notice a bunch of scripts with quadruplets of 7X bytes near the end, which seems to indicate wait commands of varying length. So an alternative would be to change the 78s to something more appropriate, like 74s.
EDIT 2: Never mind, those are not varying degrees of wait time, there are different sprite IDs. In other words, 78 is a shield. So yeah, just change the number of occurrences.
Topic: Speeding up shield animation (Read 429 times)