you're addressing me like I haven't played Chrono Cross. I know how the cast is used in a narrative sense, and even there it isn't good.
Suiko 2 ALSO uses it's cast for narrative and theming purposes- though the narrative and themes are different. Taking both at face value, the narrative in Suiko 2 is flat out stronger as well, but a lot of that may be up to personal taste. Though there is a reason Suiko 2 still shows up on "best of" RPG lists routinely despite having been released in 1998, while Chrono Cross does not.
HOW you use a "cast of thousands" type RPG (which CC is, and Suiko is, and Radiata is) matters in terms of how good a game it is. Two of those three games do interesting and complex things with a cast of dozens, from a gameplay, worldbuilding, and battle standpoint. The other one uses the majority of the cast as battle filler and little else- despite having the smallest cast to work with.
If you feel that Chrono Cross is "brilliant" from a narrative and gameplay standpoint using that cast- well, there's not much to discuss here. I doubt we'll see eye to eye.
