Anno 117: Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Turns Out to Be a Impressive First-Person Mode.
Hold on — were you aware you can play Anno 117 Pax Romana using a first-person camera? Should that be your response, you feel equally astonished as my own reaction upon finding out this hidden feature. Allow me to step away from managing my empire, entrust it to a reliable subordinate, borrow a cart, and take a spin through Ancient Rome.
How to Access the First-Person Feature
As a city-building game, Anno 117: Pax Romana usually operates from an overhead perspective. However, if you enter a secret combination — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” using PC controls or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on a controller — it becomes possible to roam the realm as a regular inhabitant. Because an analogous secret was part of the earlier game Anno 1800, I looked forward to try it out in the new release, though I was uncertain it would function prior to being chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (which probably wasn’t intended — this mode is a little buggy at times).
Exploring the Ancient Streets
Upon freeing myself, I wandered the lively avenues of my city and toured stalls, alehouses, blossom gardens, and cockle pickers — it felt magnificent to see all my hard work using an entirely new viewpoint. I observed a variety of intricacies I wouldn’t have spotted from the top-down view: Front door decorations, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, fowl roaming freely, folks chilling on their balconies… Even just observing the form of a ledge and the coating on a pillar is quite interesting to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
Further Than Mere Wandering
However, there's additional content to Anno 117’s first-person mode beyond simply walking the paths. I became extraordinarily excited the moment I learned that not only could I look upon crop lands, but also step into them. And even though I thought interiors would be restricted, I managed to access clay pits, tour an esteemed educational structure as teaching was underway, and intrude into private gardens. Don't bother with door access (not even the creators allocated resources for that), but it’s entirely possible stroll around a barley farm, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and take a peek inside any small shack as long as the door is absent.
Appearance and Mood
Even though I expected to observe my settlement depicted in PlayStation 1 graphics, apart from certain rough movements and the occasional civilian resting within a bench rather than on a bench, first-person mode looks far superior to anticipations. The intricately designed surfaces (especially stone surfaces) shouldn't logically be this impressive for a title that remains primarily overhead. You might not observe specific hair details, yet you will notice writings on surfaces, sparks flying from torches, fading on bricks, pupils, and pine tree leaves. The night, featuring dancing flames and stars shining in the distance, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and also a lot less scary relative to the previous game, given that the populace appears unlike terrifying apparitions now.
Discovery and Modification
Since Anno 117’s super-secret first-person mode has no guided tutorial, I opted to try different commands, and promptly found the abilities to leap, run, and changing perspective — the last option enabling me to switch between first and third-person views and revert. I subsequently tried pressing various digit inputs and learned I could modify my representative's visual design. Amber garment? Crimson attire? Blue and purple toga? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You may carry a sword and shield, or, preferably, wear an archer's uniform; 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).
Humor and Citizen Interactions
But I wouldn’t wish to harm my citizens anyway, as they're remarkably entertaining. Only seconds after I landed first-person mode, I overheard a father telling his child that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and if you feed it one more chicken, your grandmother will be furious.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. One lovely local Celt then began complimenting my outstanding integration methods by labeling it “Perfect fusion,” whereas an irritable elderly woman chose to intimidate me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Thrill of Transportation
Just as I assumed I uncovered all possible content in Anno 117: Pax Romana’s first-person mode, I experienced the pleasure of driving in Ancient Rome. Completely unexpectedly, I interacted with a cart and was promptly seated on the box. Bovines, equines, even manually drawn vehicles; you may operate any of them freely. The donkey cart, in particular, travels rather rapidly, though you shouldn’t imagine open-world vehicular chaos — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Combat Limitations
The only thing that disappointed me within the immersive perspective was learning about my exclusion from in combat situations. Equipped in warrior attire, I charged toward adversaries amidst fighting and tried to harm them, but was entirely disregarded. The close-up view remained quite impressive, and observing foes flee, their arms flailing about, felt highly gratifying, yet it would have been exciting to actually hit something via my incendiary bolts.
