SOS is a great concept but it's terribly unfun to play.
The game gets a lot better after one sees the "art above game design" reality and just plays it, accepting whatever happens like survivors dying, not being able to scale an obstacle because the ship Lady Crithania is tilted the wrong way or the player taking a long tumble and losing 10 minutes, is just part of the experience.
From that perspective, it is an incredible game unlike any other on the SNES, or any other platform of the time. I'd even go so far as to say SOS is a better artistic product overall than Clock Tower, a later SFC game by the same developer, Human Entertainment.