I know that many games are using bitmap fonts. Which are the advantages for vector-based font rendering / manipulation when compared to bitmap fonts and in which scenarios would they matter the most?

Prefer a focus on 2d games when answering this question.

If relevant, please include examples for games using either approach.

Some factors you might consider:

• amount of text used in the game
• scaling of text
• overlaying glyphs and anti-aliasing
• general rendering quality
• font colors and styling
• user interface requirements
• localisation / unicode
• text wrapping and formatting
• cross-platform deployment
• 2d vs 3d

Background:

I am developing a simple falling blocks game in 2d, targeted for pc. I would like to add text labels for level, score, and menu buttons. I am using SFML which uses FreeType internally, so vector-based features are easily available for my project.

In my view, font sizes in simple games often don't vary, and bitmap fonts should be easier for cross-platform concerns (font-formats and font rendering quality). But I am unsure if I am missing some important points here, especially since I want to polish the looks of the final game.