 If you're looking for something different in a 16-bit game, you can usually turn to developer Human Entertainment. They made stuff like The Fireman and Clocktower two quality and unique titles, but unfortunately neither was released in North America. Instead we got this odd ball title from Human called SOS, a side-scrolling story-driven survival adventure game heavily influenced by the novel and film the Poseidon adventure, not to be confused with the other SOS title on the Super Nintendo's Sync or Swim. in the luxury cruise ship Lady Krythania and its 2,300 passengers are being threatened by a powerful storm creating waves so huge they eventually capsize the boat. At this point you choose from four different characters each with their own backstory and game objectives and you're given one hour in real time to rescue people and do whatever you need to do to get off the boat. While the clock ticks down the boat rocks and rotates and furniture falls on you and eventually the boat starts filling up with water and if you run out of time you die. You can play as either Caprice Wisher, an architect who's traveling with his little sister, Redwind Gardner, a counselor or a priest really, Jeffrey Howell, a doctor traveling with his wife and Luke Hines who's one of the ship's crewmen who you play alongside with the ship's captain. What's funny here is that you could play SOS like a speedrun game and just sprint all the way through just to save yourself and get off the boat, but you get an ending saying hey way to be a dick and only save yourself instead of going back to help other people you asshole. So yeah you gotta go looking around for people to save and you get as many as four or five different endings for each character since they each have their own objectives like Caprice needs to find and escape with his sister and if you don't you get an ending where he comes back to the boat anyway to look for her. To get each character's best ending you gotta rescue a total of seven survivors including that particular character's relative or spouse or friend or whatever and you have to escape to the boiler room and that brings me to the controls. If you've played Clock Tower you know what to expect here. The controls are pretty simple just jumping, hanging from ledges, climbing and talking to other survivors and there's really no combat here really just obstacles. If you get hit with fire or a blast of steam or whatever you get knocked out and lose five minutes off your time. The game progressively gets harder and harder as the ship keeps sinking and rocking around rotating randomly to completely throw you off. It's actually really kind of cool. I just wish the controls weren't so dang stiff and as cool of an idea that this game is that's where it kind of falls apart. It's just such a chore to try and maneuver around as the ship is rotating and good luck getting some of these dumb ass survivors off with you and the boiler room stage that you have to get through at the end ugh. The stiff controls here combined with being at the mercy of the computer AI with these idiot survivors that are too stupid to tag along. Hey moron the ship is sinking let's go. A game this ambitious really needed a sequel to fix its flaws and strengthen its qualities and it did get a PS1 follow up that was only released in Japan called Septentrion out of the blue. However it was never translated and according to hardcore gaming 101 the game is pretty different than the original SOS and just kind of a boring mess so whatever. But yeah there are a lot of really cool ideas in SOS stuff you just don't see in other 16 bit games like well the whole survival adventure structure in general. But yeah the four different characters you choose from the people you can save and all the different endings you earn definitely make this game unique and memorable. However that's if you can get past the stiff and awkward controls and if you can suffer the stupidity of the computer AI controlled survivors. SOS is worth checking out if you want a real change of pace but even then I'd recommend human entertainment's other weird games like clock tower and the fireman over SOS.