SOS (1993 video game)



""This is to be the largest passenger shipwreck to date. There are a reported 2300 passengers aboard. The voyage will turn from ecstasy to catastrophy. The ship is in total chaos. Passengers and crew alike begin to panic, as they near the grip of death. Now, the real tragedy begins...""

SOS, known in Japan as Septentrion (セプテントリオン), is an adventure game for the SNES made by Vic Tokai. Basically, take The Poseidon Adventure and turn it into a side-scrolling platformer, and this is what you'll end up with. The Lady Crithania capsizes during a storm, and it's up to you to escape with your life. Along the way, you will encounter other passengers and crew who you must try to rescue... or not. You have to escape within one real life hour or it's game over.

You play as one of four adult males trying to escape. Each character starts in a different part of the ship, and must rescue a certain person to get their good ending. Depending on your character's personality, passengers may come with you right away or refuse to come along at all; you must balance time spent rescuing people with time spent escaping. In general, the more people rescued, the better the ending. With the exception of drowning, the only penalty for getting hurt is to Lose 5 Minutes, which is also the only time you get to see how much time you have left.

The game was hardly advertised at the time and not very popular.


 * Artificial Stupidity: People in your group, once called, will all take the same path in the same way, even if that involves jumping to their death after seeing someone else do it or just getting stuck in the floor for five seconds before continuing normally.
 * Back Tracking: If you are dedicated to saving certain people, you must sometimes go away from the exit to get to them.
 * Blackout Basement: After 30 minutes, the ship's sinking speeds up, and the power goes out on the upper (now lower) decks.
 * Crouch and Prone: You're required to crouch to get through small areas.
 * Cut and Paste Environments: The staterooms.
 * Death Cry Echo: The scream your character lets out when you Lose 5 Minutes.
 * Downer Ending/Bittersweet Ending: Depending on who your character is and who else you rescue, you don't always end up surviving even after you "get out".
 * Escort Mission: The whole point of the game.
 * Gameplay Ally Immortality: Played straight and averted. Straight in that people in your group are immune to some things that would cause you to Lose 5 Minutes, like fire and falling chairs, but averted in that they are not immune to falling or drowning.
 * Guide Dang It:
 * Some of the survivors are very well hidden, and won't come with you if you don't do certain acts in a very specific way. There's also a dialog scene before the boiler room where you will loose all the survivors if you don't answer it correctly.
 * Each person has has a score value assigned to them. If you want the better endings, you'll have to rescue people that give you a higher score, since you can only escort up to 7 people maximum. And no, the game won't tell you who gets what score.
 * Hide Your Children: Averted. You can rescue children, and they can die if you are not careful.
 * In-Universe Game Clock: You have one hour to escape the ship. After the 30 minute mark, some people can't be rescued, and others can only be rescued after it.
 * It's Up to You: The rest of the people on the ship are perfectly happy to sit in one place as the ship fills up with water around them. Only you can convince them to actually try to get out.
 * Multiple Endings: Depending on who your character is and who you rescue.
 * Never Say "Die": The word "perish" pops up entirely too often. Only averted twice – in the opening scrawl, and in one throwaway line where the character says "die" only because "perish" wouldn't fit on the screen.
 * Optional Character Scene: Marie/Mary and her mother. Jack and his cousins. Luke and the captain. Capris and his sister. There are a lot of them.
 * Palette Swap: You'll encounter many dead passengers on the ceiling (now the floor) who look the same except for the color of their hair and clothes. Sometimes even passengers in your group will exhibit this.
 * Point of No Return: The boiler room.
 * Run, Don't Walk: Averted. You can't run, you just move at a brisk walk.
 * Sinking Ship Scenario: The Game.
 * Visible Silence: All the time in your conversations with passengers.