Anno 117: Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Reveals Itself as a Stunning First-Person Mode.
Surprisingly — did you realize it's possible to experience Anno 117: Pax Romana in first-person? Should that be your response, your surprise matches compared to my initial response when I discovered this hidden feature. Excuse me while temporarily abandon overseeing my civilization, delegate it to a capable deputy, take a wagon, and take a spin across the Roman world.
How to Access the First-Person View
As a city-building game, Anno 117: Pax Romana is normally experienced from an overhead perspective. But, should you input a hidden code — including “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on a controller — it becomes possible to roam the empire as an ordinary Roman. Since a similar easter egg was included in the previous Anno title, I felt excited to try it out in the new release, yet I had doubts it would function until I found myself submerged in a structural glitch (which probably wasn’t intended — this feature can be somewhat unstable occasionally).
Roaming the Roman Cityscape
Once I crawled out, I walked the lively avenues through my metropolis and toured shops, taverns, blossom gardens, and shellfish gatherers — it was glorious to witness my diligent efforts from a brand-new perspective. I noticed numerous fine points I wouldn’t have spotted when viewing from overhead: Front door decorations, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, fowl roaming freely, people relaxing on their verandas… Even just observing the shape of a window sill and the coloration on a post proves fascinating to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
Further Than Mere Wandering
But there’s more to Anno 117’s first-person mode beyond simply walking the paths. I was especially delighted when I found out that not only could I look upon crop lands, but also enter them. And although I’d assumed structures would be inaccessible, I could walk onto clay pits, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building as teaching was underway, and intrude into private gardens. Don't bother with door access (not even the developers allocated resources for that), however, you can definitely wander through a grain field, see citizens working with tools and burdens, and look within any modest shelter provided the entrance is missing.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
While I was completely ready to see my metropolis represented with outdated visual quality, apart from certain rough movements and sometimes citizens positioned in a bench instead of on a bench, the immersive perspective seems considerably improved over predictions. The highly detailed textures (notably masonry elements) really have no business being this good in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You won't necessarily notice separate follicular elements, yet you will notice wall inscriptions, flames emitting from lights, fading on bricks, eye details, and pine tree leaves. The night, featuring dancing flames 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 sleep paralysis demons now.
Experimentation and Customization
Given the covert first-person feature has no guided tutorial, I decided to experiment a bit, and promptly found the abilities to leap, run, and adjusting the view — the zoom function permitting me to switch between first and third-person views and back. I subsequently tried pressing certain numeric keys and discovered that I could change my character’s appearance. Yellow toga? Red toga? Blue and purple toga? Or — maybe superior — complete battle gear? You can wield a blade and protection, or, preferably, wear an archer's uniform; when you press the action key, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. Should you be curious, eliminating citizens cannot be done (though I didn't test this, obviously).
Humor and Citizen Interactions
However, I had no desire to injure my people, since they're incredibly amusing. Shortly after I activated the first-person view, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that “Owning a fox is prohibited and if you feed it one more chicken, your elder will punish you.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. One lovely local Celt then proceeded to praise my outstanding integration methods by describing it as “Ideal combination,” meanwhile a grumpy senior female opted to menace me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Joy of Joyriding
Just as I assumed I had found everything available in the title's first-person feature, I experienced the pleasure of driving through classical settlements. Entirely by accident, I clicked on a wagon and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Bovines, equines, even manually drawn vehicles; you can control each one as desired. The donkey cart, in particular, is pretty fast, although you shouldn't expect any GTA-like shenanigans — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (again, not saying I’ve tried).
Fighting Restrictions
The sole aspect that let me down within the immersive perspective was finding out I couldn’t partake in combat situations. Sporting my soldier fit, I charged toward adversaries during active combat and endeavored to damage them, but was entirely disregarded. The front-row seat was nonetheless magnificent, and observing foes flee, their limbs waving wildly, proved very satisfying, yet it would have been exciting to effectively strike targets via my incendiary bolts.