Anno 117: Pax Romana's Top Secret Turns Out to Be a Stunning First-Person View.
Wait — did you know gamers have the option to enjoy Anno 117: Pax Romana from a first-person viewpoint? If that’s your reaction, your surprise matches as I was the moment I learned this concealed mode. I must briefly leave overseeing my civilization, delegate it to a reliable subordinate, commandere a carriage, and enjoy a ride across the Roman world.
How to Access the First-Person Mode
Being a city-building title, Anno 117 Pax Romana is typically played from a bird's-eye view. Yet, when you input a hidden code — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — it becomes possible to roam the empire as an ordinary Roman. Since a similar easter egg was included in Anno 1800, I felt excited to try it out in the new release, but I wasn’t sure it would function prior to being submerged in a structural glitch (likely not meant to happen — this option is prone to glitches now and then).
Discovering the Streets of Rome
Once I crawled out, I walked the lively avenues across my settlement and visited stalls, alehouses, flower fields, and shellfish gatherers — it was glorious to observe the fruits of my labor from a brand-new perspective. I detected numerous fine points that would escape notice from the top-down view: Front door decorations, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, fowl roaming freely, folks chilling on their balconies… Merely examining the design of a windowsill and the coating on a pillar becomes engaging for those not residing in classical times.
Further Than Mere Wandering
Yet, the experience extends to the game's immersive perspective aside from meandering through streets. I was especially delighted the moment I learned that not only could I look upon farming fields, but also access them. And although I’d assumed the building models would be off-limits, I could walk onto clay pits, tour an esteemed educational structure during active classes, and invade personal courtyards. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the studio allocated resources for that), however, you can definitely meander across a cereal plantation, see citizens working with tools and burdens, and take a peek inside any small shack provided the entrance is missing.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
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 instead of on a bench, first-person mode looks much better than expected. The meticulously crafted materials (notably masonry elements) shouldn't logically be this impressive in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You may not see specific hair details, yet you will notice writings on surfaces, fiery particles from lamps, discoloration of masonry, pupils, and conifer needles. The night, featuring dancing flames and stars shining in the distance, is especially atmospheric, and also a lot less scary relative to the previous game, now that the citizens don’t look like terrifying apparitions now.
Testing and Personalization
Given the covert first-person feature lacks official documentation, I decided to experiment a bit, and quickly discovered the functions for jumping, dashing, and changing perspective — the zoom function permitting me to alternate between immersive and external perspectives and return. I then decided to hit some number buttons and discovered that I could change my representative's visual design. Yellow toga? Crimson attire? Sapphire and amethyst dress? Or — maybe superior — complete battle gear? You can wield a blade and protection, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; if you hit the interaction button, you shoot flaming projectiles upward. If you're interested, eliminating citizens cannot be done (not that I attempted, naturally).
Comedy and Population Encounters
Yet, I didn't want to damage my population, as they're remarkably entertaining. Moments after I entered the immersive perspective, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and if you offer additional fowl, your gran will have your head.” Rightly so, Roman dad. A pleasant regional Celt then began complimenting my outstanding integration methods by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” meanwhile a grumpy senior female opted to menace me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Joy of Joyriding
Just when I thought I had found everything available within the game's immersive perspective, I found the joys of joyriding across historical settings. Completely unexpectedly, I selected a carriage and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Cattle, asses, 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 Grand Theft Auto-style mischief — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (once more, not admitting any attempts).
Combat Limitations
The single feature that frustrated me in Anno 117’s first-person mode was learning about my exclusion from in battle encounters. Equipped in warrior attire, I charged toward adversaries in the midst of battle and attempted to attack them, only to be ignored completely. The close-up view remained quite impressive, and observing foes flee, their arms flailing about, proved very satisfying, yet it would have been exciting to actually hit something via my incendiary bolts.