Unique, ambitious, and far ahead of its time, SOS (aka Septentrion) is an adventure platformer that thrusts you on a sinking ship. Over the course of a real time hour, you have the option to save several passengers or leave them behind. Depending on who you save, you get a different ending. As the time progresses, the ship wobbles and tilts, sometimes 45 degrees, sometimes 90, sometimes more. With this in mind, platforming becomes focused on strategic maneuvers to prevent characters from falling to their death. The Mode 7 work here is really impressive, rotating the sprites around in a way that I haven't seen before on the SNES.
With that all said, this is a game to be appreciated from afar, through longplays and such, rather than playing it in my opinion. The controls are quite cumbersome and the NPC AI is really clumsy and often feels frustratingly suicidal. The concept and mechanics here are really cool though, the devs of this would go on to refine a lot of what's here for their later games like the beloved Clock Tower.
With that all said, this is a game to be appreciated from afar, through longplays and such, rather than playing it in my opinion. The controls are quite cumbersome and the NPC AI is really clumsy and often feels frustratingly suicidal. The concept and mechanics here are really cool though, the devs of this would go on to refine a lot of what's here for their later games like the beloved Clock Tower.