I think it has to do with JRPG tales not improving over the past decade, and by extension how music is incorporated into these tales via cutscenes and whatnot.
The narratives of the 90s could be portrayed just fine via text, and the same holds true for DS games liek Sands of Destruction, but on current gen consoles we're in the age of elaborate cutscenes, and those same narratives aren't cutting it, as JRPGs are often filled with cliche moments (the Jedi mind trick scene that opens WKC) and/or have an awkward and disjointed script.
Final Fantasy is really the only franchise that has come a long way in this area (look at the voice acting in FFX > FFXII > FFXIII, though ToV and VC have made nice improvements for the genre as well). Compare JRPGs overall to WRPGs like Mass Effect and things just look weak. From what I've seen of SO4 and IU, and what I've played of ES and WKC, they feel like FFX in an age when that's hardly acceptable.
Of course, this is only one aspect from an overall package, and I'm quite enjoying WKC despite this, but when a genre focuses heavily on storytelling, at least make the storytelling enjoyable.
