Particles appearing 3D?

Hey all - I saw this video, and I’d love to recreate something similar - from what I understand, the main animation is baked into a flipbook and applied to a sprite, which the creator confirms in the post replies - though I can’t seem to understand how the sprite appears 3D when it’s head on towards the camera (around 3 seconds in, top right). I assume if it was a sprite this would cause it to appear flat? If anyone could fill me in on what I’m missing here, I’d appreciate it!
Thanks!

Looking at this again, there’s a chance it may be the video compression playing tricks on me. Whoops