HoMM VII Haven Units – Haven faction units from the seventh installment of Heroes of Might and Magic.

I glanced through it quickly. I didn't notice anything special in the files themselves. One of the textures is indeed a normal map. Mechanically, it seems to be displayed the same way as the water normal map from the original game, but since the texture from the beta is more angular, it's more noticeable that it is a normal map.
I think you should look for the cause not in the texture files, but in the material files.
I suggest conducting a test: replace the water normal map with some normal map from Heroes 6, just to see how the game will display it. (I can't do this myself right now because I don't have the DDS plugins installed). Then you can try applying the water material to creature models and, little by little, using the method of elimination, figure out which line and in which file is responsible for displaying the normal map and whether it is possible to transfer this function to the creature model.