If it’s only officially playable through an emulator I wonder why didn’t just use a modern game engine to make something in a pixel art style? This is definitely more interesting though
It gives it enough authenticity to make headlines. A generic html game wouldn't have made any where near the same buzz.
Edit: The game page itself doesn’t mention it but the article has information on how it was made and by who so they must have got the information somehow, maybe the developer talked about it