1) It looks very crisp and is easy to read, high res pixel art like “Tough Bippy” by Wan!Wan! Games look excellent with the clean pixel art. While the flash animated versions of the sprites would also look excellent the pixel art helps the player easily see how the player is interacting with the environment. Collision boxes can be much easier understood which is important for a fighting game too. I also think it isn’t being held back visually by using pixel art because it looks just as dynamic as it could in any other art form.
I think it’s also used as a beginners art form since it seems deceptively easy even though I see many games I don’t like the look of that use pixel art. Many games artists don’t understand colour theory or antialiasing and try to overcomplicate things by using skills that they have not practiced enough. Undertale and Downwell are good examples of successful simplicity where there isn’t too much unnecessary detail which if done wrong could’ve made the game look worse. I’ve only recently gotten over having mixed mediums in games like pixel games having hd text boxes. But as long as a game is consistent in it’s style I’m a little more loose about them breaking these “rules” I have got stuck in my head. Like not mixing different pixel sizes across different sprites.
2) I love being able to be very precise and having the option to clean up a sketch very easily. It is as versatile as any other art but takes less precision since you don’t always need to be trying to get that perfect line as you can go and manually tweak it pixel by pixel after the sketch.
3) I think game wise the current releases focus less on trying to cash out on “nostalgia” by having a very similar art style to a classic retro title. And sometimes they try to get away with bad art by saying it is retro when in reality older games have had very beautiful pixel art.
It also doesn’t have the same bad reputation that it is a lazy art form with more beautifully, well done sprites being featured in games. A recent indie game hit “Grapple dog” has a very clean style that just would be just as good if done hand drawn or vector art but isn’t being limited visually through the form of pixel art but has all the benefits of being a little easier read with it’s crispness. Which also can be upscaled to larger screens easier than some other art.
Pixel art had it’s limits pushed many years ago when it was the only option for games and now the only difference is how trends in the medium change, I hope to see more 3d games using pixel art textures in the future!