Anno 117's Pax Romana's Top Secret Turns Out to Be a Stunning First-Person Perspective.
Surprisingly — did you realize you can play Anno 117: Pax Romana from a first-person viewpoint? If that’s your reaction, you feel equally astonished as my own reaction when I discovered this concealed mode. I must temporarily abandon overseeing my civilization, leave it in a reliable subordinate, take a wagon, and enjoy a ride around the classical city.
How to Access the First-Person Feature
As a city-building game, the game Anno 117 is normally experienced from an overhead perspective. However, if you enter a secret combination — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — it becomes possible to roam the realm as a regular inhabitant. Since a similar easter egg was included in Anno 1800, I looked forward to experience it in the latest installment, but I wasn’t sure it would function prior to being submerged in a structural glitch (which probably wasn’t intended — this option tends to be a little buggy at times).
Exploring the Roman Cityscape
After extracting myself, I strolled the busy roads through my metropolis and visited markets, breweries, blossom gardens, and shellfish gatherers — it felt magnificent to see my diligent efforts from a brand-new perspective. I noticed all kinds of details I might have missed from above: Front door decorations, an ass transporting a floral pail, poultry scattering about, people relaxing on their verandas… Merely examining the form of a ledge and the coloration on a post proves fascinating to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
Further Than Mere Wandering
However, there's additional content to the game's immersive perspective aside from meandering through streets. I was especially delighted upon discovering that besides being able to view crop lands, but also step into them. And although I’d assumed interiors would be restricted, I was able to enter clay pits, tour an esteemed educational structure during active classes, and invade personal courtyards. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the creators planned for that functionality), yet it's completely feasible meander across a cereal plantation, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and look within any modest shelter when there's no doorway obstructing.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
Although I was fully prepared to witness my city rendered in PlayStation 1 graphics, excluding a few unpolished motions and sometimes citizens positioned in a bench rather than on a bench, the immersive perspective seems much better than expected. The highly detailed textures (especially stone surfaces) are unexpectedly excellent in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You might not observe any individual strands of hair, but you will see wall inscriptions, sparks flying from torches, fading on bricks, iris elements, and evergreen foliage. Evening, with glowing light sources and distant stellar illumination, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and also a lot less scary compared to Anno 1800, given that the populace appears unlike nightmarish entities anymore.
Experimentation and Customization
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective lacks official documentation, I decided to experiment a bit, and immediately located the functions for jumping, dashing, and adjusting the view — with the latter allowing me to switch between first and third-person views and revert. I then experimented with certain numeric keys and discovered that I could change my avatar's look. Golden robe? Crimson attire? Sapphire and amethyst dress? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You may carry a sword and shield, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; if you hit the interaction button, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. Should you be curious, harming inhabitants is impossible (though I didn't test this, obviously).
Amusement and Inhabitant Dialogues
But I wouldn’t wish to harm my citizens anyway, as they're remarkably entertaining. Shortly after I activated first-person mode, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that “Owning a fox is prohibited and should you provide another poultry, your grandmother will be furious.” Rightly so, Roman dad. One lovely local Celt then proceeded to praise my outstanding integration methods by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” while some cranky old lady decided to threaten me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Joy of Joyriding
Just when I thought I’d discovered all there is to discover in Anno 117: Pax Romana’s first-person mode, I encountered the delight of riding through classical settlements. Totally unintentionally, I clicked on a wagon and quickly occupied the transport. Bovines, equines, even people-powered transports; you can drive them all at your leisure. The donkey cart, in particular, travels rather rapidly, although you shouldn't expect any GTA-like shenanigans — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (again, not saying I’ve tried).
Battle Constraints
The sole aspect that let me down regarding the first-person view was finding out I couldn’t partake in battle encounters. Wearing my military outfit, I ran up to the enemy in the midst of battle and attempted to attack them, yet was completely overlooked. The close-up view was nonetheless magnificent, and watching the enemy run, their limbs waving wildly, proved very satisfying, though it might have been amazing to successfully impact objects with my burning arrows.
