Why is the text so hard to read?

There are a lot of reasons I made the text as it is. Not everyone will want to hear my reasons so here is a TLDR:

To match the strict art style.

Would it change the art style if the text was more readable?

Yes and no.

The game is restricted to 128x72 pixels, and the screen has a lot of detail. Making the text larger and more detailed would work, but it would also take up a lot of space. I am already unhappy with the amount of scrolling to read text boxes, and making the font larger would increase that. I wanted to be strict with the pixels in my assets, and shrinking the text to allow more detail would hurt my mortal soul and I would go to pixel-art-hell. No, I'm not joking.

So just make the window larger, right?

This would actually solve all my problems, and I would be spared from the pixelated pits. The screen resolution was set at the very beginning of the project, and all art assets were made with the size in mind. The font was one of the last things I made for the game. I enjoy finding ways around restrictions when using pixel art, but this was my first time making a font. For a text-heavy game, I should have given myself more pixels to work with from the beginning.