@straylight This is a very good explanation that clarified about exactly what I like in The Vibe. Thanks! I feel like FFXIII is very surface level-ly the vibe, its got the right colors and designs, but it is indeed the particulars of its writing that are the thing that makes it not so.
FFX dog... they fucking did it that day. They put it all in that one. Everything I like is there.

Posed this question to friends and there seemed to be a consensus that the vibe implies a melancholy as an essential element which I think is close to correct but doesn't explain why SA2 is so firmly The Vibe. Maybe it's just so firmly the vibe in every other way it makes up for it?

One question I find particularly interesting is that I can't quite put my finger on why FF13 is not this vibe. I don't feel it in FF13, but it feels like 90% of the surface level qualities of The Vibe are present there, and that's as somebody who both likes FF13 and its vibe. Maybe it's just too high poly, too modern, too close to the contemporary AAA, and The Vibe is kinda allergic to those things.