A new GBA game slated for 2024, and the meaning behind it

[RT-55J]

HD portraits and text being overlaid on top of low-res pixel art isn't an unprecedented choice. Games like Celeste have done it years ago, though it's always been a bit stylistically divisive from my experience (see: the FF pixel remasters).

I do think there is a bit of a pragmatic element here too. Sticking to modern, commodity typefaces eliminates the burden of having to produce/source a fitting pixel font for a given locale (though in practice I don't know how much of an issue that is).

[Drag]

Being able to render a modern font is always a good fallback, and I wouldn't count on being able to find a ready-made retro-video-game-styled pixel font for locales that aren't Japanese or Latin-alphabet-ish, although there are some surprising exceptions to that.

[tepples]

You could use something like Fixedsys Excelsior, an expansion of the Fixedsys pixel font shipped with old Windows to cover a wide range of scripts.

[Dwedit]

perhaps even a change of compilers in order to work with this game (presumably using devkitARM?)

DevkitARM made some major changes a few years ago that broke any use of VRAM/SRAM without using Volatile.

[creaothceann]

Maybe it's just me but it felt kinda weird seeing that level of pixel-art mashed together with those types of HD drawings on the video, and fonts as well. Normally I am more used to both characters portraits and the font to be pixelated for consistency-sake

Sticking to modern, commodity typefaces eliminates the burden of having to produce/source a fitting pixel font for a given locale (though in practice I don't know how much of an issue that is)

I wouldn't count on being able to find a ready-made retro-video-game-styled pixel font for locales that aren't Japanese or Latin-alphabet-ish, although there are some surprising exceptions to that

There's e.g. Monocraft.