So, now that I've played the game completely (and even have a text dump), I can make some corrections. The bolded text is from the article.
1)"Each character has approximately four or five main endings, depending on how many survivors you've rescued, but the actual people you save also changes some events and dialogue, leading to hundreds of possible permutations."Each character has 5 endings, but only Redwin has 4. I think maybe that 5th ending was removed from the USA version (See Removed Stuff below).
As for the
"hundreds of possible permutations", that is incorrect. I suspect this started spreading thanks to the (only) FAQ on gamefaqs that said that certain characters changed the endings. I can tell you that this is not true, not only because I finished the game by having over 20 different combination of survivors (just to make sure), but because the text dump supports it.
Who you have on the ending makes no difference (except for the character's "loved one"), but how many you have, does.
Here are all the possible endings, if you are interested:
www.vgmuseum.com/end/snes/d/sos.htmSome of those endings are pretty grim. On Luke's
best ending, the captain pulls out a gun and tries to commit suicide. And on another ending, the captain actually pulls his pixelated gun and
kills Luke. I'm shocked this wasn't censored or removed completely (See Removed Stuff below).
2) "Two young kids won't leave unless you find their mother." Well, you don't really have to find their mother. It's just that they only leave if you're playing as Redwin. You can take them to their mother though, if you want to see them crying and yelling (it's not necessary). Several characters only leave if you are playing as a specific character.
3) "For instance, if you know who to talk to, you can get a map of the ship. Which is great! Except, the map is for the ship in its upright position. The capsized ship is, of course, upside down, which means your actual location is flipped on the map. "This bothered me too, until I realized you can rotate the map with L/R and zoom in/out with X/A.
So that's one problem easily solved if we would have had access to the manual
4) "Like most AI-controlled companions in video games, they aren't terribly smart - you'll sometimes find them trying to make impossible jumps, or otherwise get caught on some kinds of obstacles."This irked me a lot too. But then I learned a few controller tricks that made everything much much easier. The problem, if we can call it a problem, is that we play the game and leave the passengers behind. You are not supposed to go ahead and leave the passengers to make jumps on their own. This is a survival game, not an action game. You can help them jump higher by crouching and pressing Y to give them a boost. You can also pull them up to your position or grab them when they jump by pressing Y. Helping them solved 40% of the "A.I. getting stuck" problem.
The other percent was solved by:
5) "Anyway, the developers must've realized that their pathfinding routines weren't very good. So, if you trek ahead, enter the next room, and call for them, they'll immediately transport right next you, regardless of where they were in the previous area."I have one better, one that solved pretty much every problem this game has with passengers getting stuck. If you press the R button to call the passengers to your position, once the Arrow turns red, hold the R button and the arrow will disappear. Once it does, the passengers will follow you automatically! Even through doors or screens! This made the game soooo much easier since you don't really have to wait for them when entering a doors or changing screens.
However, they will follow your every step, so if you make a bad jump, so will they. But if they still get stuck, you can use the Y button to help them.
After I learned that, the game's controls and A.I. were not longer so obtuse.
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Removed stuff:Thanks to the text dump made by Vehek from Romhacking.net. I was able to see the original introduction text, which was changed for the final game. See the text here:
www.gamefaqs.com/boards/578932-sos/61690471I was also able to see a list of survivors. Most of them are accounted for, except Brian Dickster, Anthony Pains and Wins Laney Reiton.
Wins Laney Reiton is not even mentioned in Japanese pages, so I suspect this character was removed from the final game (or is really really hidden).
Brian Dickster and Anthony Pains are two drunks in the ship's bar. However, the entrance to this bar was locked in the USA version and all of their dialogue was removed. I believe Redwin's 5th ending might have been removed too.
Vehek said that there were several instances in the ROM where segments were completely left blank, whereas there was text in the Japanese version. And as we all know, English takes way more space than Japanese, so I doubt they actually had space left after the translation.
But, it's strange that they left the suicide and homicide endings in Luke's scenario. I guess that drinking and religion were more controversial.
Also, one of the main characters, Redwin, is a counselor in the USA version, but in the Japanese version he's a minister. That's the guy that's playing in the ship's casino when the game starts. He's also a bit drunk I believe, since it looks like he's about to throw up when the kids start bugging him. He's also the one with the missing 5th ending. Maybe it dealt with religion?
And finally, the credits were cut short. In the Japanese version there was a list of all the characters, which had real life names next to them. I think they are supposed to be voice actors, but then again, the game doesn't have any voices, so I don't know.
Comments:I think you should mention the name of the ship in the article (Lady Crithania).
Also, I think it's worth a mention the fact that in the 30 seconds before the ship capsizes, you can traverse the entire ship and talk to every single passenger (even the ones that are going to die in a few seconds) and they will ALL have something different to say. It's pretty cool seeing them dancing, playing, hanging out, working, etc. without knowing their fate is going to change soon enough. It's amazing that they went through the trouble of giving lines (and translating them) to almost 60 characters, when almost no one will even get to read them due to the short window the game leaves you to do that. You can use this code though, 7E030501, to give you as much time as you want.
If want some external links on the article, you can link to this great map made by Tropicon (
www.vgmapper.com/SysSNES/S/S.O.S.html ) which lists every survivor. It was thanks to this that I was able to 100% the game.
Anyway, that's about it. I was always interested in this game, but after playing, I now love it. It's too bad that the controls take so long to get used to, but once you learn those controller tricks I mentioned, the game becomes much more enjoyable.