Good work, Howard. This is the best attempt I've seen of trying to turn pixel art into a mere shader-option of standard 3d. It looks awesome.
Scrutinizing every frame of the .gif, surely a pixel artist will find plenty flaws in the pixel level rendering, after all pixel art is very much about the details of artistic rendering.
However, upwards HD resolutions exact pixelation matters less and less to the commoner's eye, and what remains as obvious hallmark to identify it as pixel art is the controlled palette.
We have this ideological spectrum of how to make pixel art transit into the next dimension, with two ends in seeming opposition:
Focusing on the result or focusing on the process. You have made a very strong and appealing case for the result, to make Pixel Art a sort of aesthetic choice in a different artform.
Taking advantage of industry standard 3d mesh modelling especially for animation and dynamic scenes can have astounding effects.
My own work is all about the process: preserving, refining and focusing the traditional method of pixel art on the transit.
This is so important to me that I might even be willing to skip on a result output that would try to mimic as close as possible true classic retro titles in a literal sense.
That is because I am most interested in finding ways and cases the pixel art method of creation is not a cumbersome hurdle we would want to skip on,
but its own creative advantages we can have productive interest in.
However, for the assets you showcase here as an example, I see your side in greatest favour. Good job on finding ways to keep your end of the spectrum so interesting.