As a hobbiest, even if visual fidelity isn't a concern I would use unreal over unity. Unity optimizes for making a block move around the screen, but becomes increasingly convoluted in design. Unreal doesn't feel like you are just hammering random different unrelated systems together as much. If I were to do a 2d game I would use godot though.
I tried Unity for a while for 2d game development and really hated the workflow, so I floundered for a couple years trying to figure out what path to take for some of my project ideas.
I've shipped 2 games in Phaser, but did not like the experience at all- optimization was a nightmare and structuring a non-trivial project was surprisingly hard. I've since switched to Godot which has been a dream so far. I would use Godot for 3d development as well, but I realize that anyone that prioritizes visual fidelity will likely look elsewhere. Godot 4 will have huge improvements there, but nothing at the level of Unreal or even Unity.
