Anno 117's Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Reveals Itself as a Breathtaking First-Person Perspective.
Surprisingly — did you realize gamers have the option to enjoy the game Anno 117 in first-person? If that’s your reaction, you’re just as shocked as my own reaction the moment I learned this secret option. Excuse me while step away from overseeing my civilization, entrust it to a reliable subordinate, borrow a cart, and go for a joyride through Ancient Rome.
Unlocking the First-Person Feature
As a city-building game, Anno 117: Pax Romana is normally experienced from a bird's-eye view. Yet, when you enter a secret combination — including “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on console — you gain the ability to walk the realm as a regular inhabitant. Because an analogous secret was included in Anno 1800, I looked forward to try it out in the new release, yet I had doubts it would function until I found myself submerged in a structural glitch (likely not meant to happen — this mode is somewhat unstable occasionally).
Roaming the Streets of Rome
After extracting myself, I strolled the lively avenues across my settlement and toured stalls, alehouses, floral patches, and seafood collectors — it was glorious to see my diligent efforts through a fresh lens. I observed a variety of intricacies I might have missed from the top-down view: Front door decorations, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, fowl roaming freely, people relaxing on their verandas… Even just observing the form of a ledge and the paint layers on a column is quite interesting to modern individuals unfamiliar with ancient life.
Further Than Mere Wandering
However, there's additional content to the game's immersive perspective beyond simply walking the paths. I was especially delighted when I found out that I could not just observe agricultural plots, but also step into them. And despite my expectation interiors would be restricted, I was able to enter clay pits, investigate a respected schoolhouse during active classes, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the creators have the budget for that), yet it's completely feasible stroll around a barley farm, see citizens working with tools and burdens, and glance into any tiny hut provided the entrance is missing.
Graphics and Ambiance
Even though I expected to observe my settlement depicted with outdated visual quality, apart from certain rough movements and periodic inhabitants sitting in a bench as opposed to atop a bench, first-person mode looks much better than expected. The meticulously crafted materials (notably masonry elements) really have no business being this good for a title that remains primarily overhead. You may not see specific hair details, but you will see writings on surfaces, fiery particles from lamps, fading on bricks, iris elements, and conifer needles. The night, featuring dancing flames and celestial bodies twinkling afar, creates a particularly moody setting, and also a lot less scary versus the earlier title, given that the populace appears unlike nightmarish entities these days.
Experimentation and Customization
Given the covert first-person feature has no guided tutorial, I chose to test various actions, and immediately located the abilities to leap, run, and adjusting the view — the zoom function permitting me to change from first-person to third-person mode and back. I then decided to hit some number buttons and discovered that I could change my avatar's look. Yellow toga? Red toga? Azure and violet outfit? Or — maybe superior — complete battle gear? You may carry a sword and shield, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; if you hit the interaction button, you shoot flaming projectiles upward. If you're interested, eliminating citizens cannot be done (not that I’ve tried, of course).
Comedy and Population Encounters
Yet, I didn't want to damage my population, as they're remarkably entertaining. Moments after I entered the first-person view, I overheard a father telling his child that “Owning a fox is prohibited and if you offer additional fowl, your elder will punish you.” Understandable stance, father character. A pleasant regional Celt then proceeded to praise my outstanding integration methods by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” whereas an irritable elderly woman decided to threaten me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Fun of Vehicle Use
At the moment I believed I’d discovered all there is to discover in the title's first-person feature, I experienced the pleasure of driving across historical settings. Completely unexpectedly, I interacted with a cart and was promptly seated on the box. Bovines, equines, even people-powered transports; you can control each one as desired. The donkey-powered transport, notably, moves quite quickly, though you shouldn’t imagine any GTA-like shenanigans — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (again, not saying I’ve tried).
Battle Constraints
The single feature that frustrated me within the immersive perspective was discovering my inability to participate in combat situations. Sporting my soldier fit, I approached opposing forces in the midst of battle and tried to harm them, yet was completely overlooked. The close-up view was still rather spectacular, and watching the enemy run, their appendages thrashing around, felt highly gratifying, though it might have been amazing to actually hit something via my incendiary bolts.
