eh...not on board with this. Chrono Cross is an OK game but a terrible sequel to Chrono Trigger.
Chrono Cross followed up what was at the time a pretty good time travel story, but ditched the time travel aspect entirely for a cross dimensional narrative.
The original cast barely makes an appearance, and when they do it was in a throwaway scene that implies they either died or came to a bad end.
from a gameplay perspective, Chrono Trigger attempts to do the "cast of thousands" bit with a staggeringly huge party- but screws it up. There's little distinction between party members other than saying the exact same thing in a different silly accent. Compare this to how Suikoden 1 and 2 handle the same approach with larger casts- Chrono Cross' approach looks lazy and poorly thought out.
And Ye gods- trying to get the true ending without a walkthrough was a nightmare. This is not a game I look fondly on.
But the main characters are far more developed than Trigger ever managed to. Serge, Kid, Lynx, Darius, Harle, Glenn, Radius, the Viper family, the generals, etc
This is a weird hang-up, there are tons of NPCs in this world that you can recruit to your point, a lot of them have their own side stories to play that fleshes out the world. There is a ton of distinction. i don't understand using Suikoden as a point of comparison like they all play differently? They don't
And again, Cross never established that they died, and even if they did, it's a story about hopping dimensions and turning back time. The consequences of Cross goes far beyond the life and death of a few people, they can all be resurrected or saved.
