''SOS'', known in

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as , is a

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video game developed by

Human Entertainment was a Japanese video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher founded in 1983. The company produced games for a number of platforms, including home consoles, portable consoles, and personal computers. Human declared bankruptcy in 2000 ...

and published in 1994 by Vic Tokai for the

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. A sequel to the game was later released in Japan for the

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known as ''Septentrion: Out of the Blue''.

Story

The game presents itself as a "Syuji Yoshida film", and is displayed from the view of an audience watching a theatre. Mostly inspired by the 1969 book and 1972 film, ''The Poseidon Adventure'', the story is set on September 13, 1921, and the players must escape the sinking ship ''Lady Crithania'', which is hit by a gigantic wave and capsizes off the coast of Humbleton, England. The game features four playable characters, each with a different story: * Capris Wisher - An architect. This young man takes his younger stepsister, Amy Markarson, to the ''Lady Crithania''. However, Amy's sickness becomes a severe hindrance to him. * Redwin Gardner - A pastor (changed to counsellor in the US release) , traveling with a family consisting of an unnamed mother and her children Stella and Harry Adams. Plus, Jack Hamilton, a nephew. His special skill is that Gardner possesses better persuasion. * Jeffrey Howell - An affable senior doctor, he travels along with his wife Adela. Because he is a doctor he has ability to heal wounded survivors. * Luke Haines - A crewman of the ''Lady Crithania''. He suspects that the sea conditions are too much for the ''Lady Crithania'' to handle, much to the opposition of his superiors. He possesses the ship's map that enables him to better navigate paths. At the end, an in-game credits roll displays the 'cast' alongside fictitious actor names, reinforcing the intro's metafiction story.

Gameplay

left, An example of the main game screen. Luke Haines stands in a stairway before the tidal wave. The player must escape from the ship within a one-hour time limit. The timer is hidden except when the player injures themselves, in which case they fall unconscious and lose five minutes of time. After a period of time, the ship begins to periodically tilt in the water and gradually fill with water. The player can take up to seven other survivors, some of which have different value to each playable character, and all of them have different requirements in how to get to them and how to make them follow the player. Depending on how many survivors the player finds, who they are and how valuable they are to the character player selected, the ending will vary. The best ending for each character is obtained by escaping the boiler room, the final area of the game, with their sentimental person (Amy for Capris; Harry, Stella and Jack for Redwin; Ismay Carl Townsend for Luke; and Adela for Jeffrey) and over 25 "points" worth of survivors.

Release

The game was released in Japan as ''Septentrion'' on May 28, 1993 for the Super Famicom. The game was released in North America April 1994, under the title ''S.O.S.'', and was published by Vic Tokai. It was followed up by the Japan-only release of '' Septentrion: Out of the Blue'' in 1999 for the Sony PlayStation.

Reception

The game received average reviews upon release. ''

GamePro ''GamePro'' was an American multiplatform video game magazine media company that published online and print content covering the video game industry, video game hardware and video game software. The magazine featured content on various video ...

'' gave the game a mixed review, saying that the premise is compelling but marred by too many poorly designed segments. They summarized the game as "a movie-like trek that has great ambience but hits some sticky spots along the way." In Japan, ''

Famitsu , formerly , is a line of Japanese Video game journalism, video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly f ...

'' gave it a positive score of 32 out of 40. In 2017, Dominic Arsenault described SOS as "one of the truly original SNES titles".

Notes

References

External links

Possible endings for the video game ''SOS''
at VGMuseum.com
''SOS'' instruction manual
at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

{{The Poseidon Adventure The Poseidon Adventure (novel) 1993 video games Human Entertainment games Naval video games Super Nintendo Entertainment System games Super Nintendo Entertainment System-only games Vic Tokai games Video games about disasters Video games developed in Japan Video games set in the 1920s Fiction set in 1921 Video games set in Yorkshire Survival video games Single-player video games