Anno 117's Pax Romana's Top Secret Turns Out to Be a Impressive First-Person View.
Hold on — were you aware gamers have the option to enjoy the game Anno 117 from a first-person viewpoint? If that’s your reaction, your surprise matches compared to my initial response upon finding out this hidden feature. Excuse me while step away from managing my empire, entrust it to a capable deputy, take a wagon, and go for a joyride across the Roman world.
How to Access the First-Person Mode
In its role as a city-builder, Anno 117: Pax Romana usually operates using a top-down camera. Yet, when you enter a secret combination — including “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — you can explore the empire as an ordinary Roman. Since a similar easter egg was included in the previous Anno title, I felt excited to test it in the latest installment, yet I had doubts it would operate until I found myself chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (which probably wasn’t intended — this option can be a little buggy at times).
Discovering the Streets of Rome
Once I crawled out, I wandered the busy roads through my metropolis and visited shops, taverns, blossom gardens, and shellfish gatherers — it was glorious to observe my diligent efforts through a fresh lens. I detected all kinds of details that would escape notice when viewing from overhead: Doorway embellishments, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, chickens running loose, people relaxing on their verandas… Merely examining the design of a windowsill and the paint layers on a column is quite interesting for those not residing in classical times.
More Than Just Walking
But there’s more to the first-person feature in Anno 117 beyond simply walking the paths. I was especially delighted when I found out that not only could I look upon farming fields, but also step into them. And even though I thought the building models would be off-limits, I was able to enter mud extraction sites, investigate a respected schoolhouse as teaching was underway, and intrude into private gardens. Don't bother with door access (not even the creators planned for that functionality), however, you can definitely wander through a grain field, observe people digging and transporting bags, and look within any modest shelter provided the entrance is missing.
Graphics and Ambiance
Even though I expected to observe my settlement depicted in PlayStation 1 graphics, excluding a few unpolished motions and periodic inhabitants sitting in a bench as opposed to atop a bench, the immersive perspective seems far superior to anticipations. The meticulously crafted materials (especially stone surfaces) shouldn't logically be this impressive in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You might not observe separate follicular elements, but you will see wall inscriptions, flames emitting from lights, discoloration of masonry, eye details, and evergreen foliage. Evening, with glowing light sources and distant stellar illumination, creates a particularly moody setting, and also a lot less scary relative to the previous game, now that the citizens don’t look like nightmarish entities these days.
Testing and Personalization
Given the covert first-person feature lacks official documentation, I opted to try different commands, and promptly found the options to jump, sprint, and zoom in or out — the last option enabling me to change from first-person to third-person mode and return. I then decided to hit some number buttons and found I could alter my avatar's look. Amber garment? Ruby clothing? Blue and purple toga? Or — perhaps even better — full armor? You might hold a weapon and defense, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; if you activate the engage command, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. If you're interested, eliminating citizens cannot be done (though I didn't test this, obviously).
Amusement and Inhabitant Dialogues
However, I had no desire to injure my people, since they're incredibly amusing. Shortly after I activated first-person mode, I overheard a father telling his child that “Owning a fox is prohibited and if you feed it one more chicken, your elder will punish you.” Rightly so, Roman dad. A pleasant regional Celt then started applauding my outstanding integration methods by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” while some cranky old lady chose to intimidate me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Fun of Vehicle Use
At the moment I believed I uncovered all possible content in Anno 117: Pax Romana’s first-person mode, I encountered the delight of riding across historical settings. Completely unexpectedly, I clicked on a wagon and quickly occupied the transport. Bovines, equines, even human-pulled carts; you can drive them all at your leisure. The donkey-powered transport, notably, travels rather rapidly, although you shouldn't expect open-world vehicular chaos — impacting citizens or additional vehicles cannot occur (again, not saying I’ve tried).
Battle Constraints
The single feature that frustrated me regarding the first-person view was learning about my exclusion from in combat situations. Wearing my military outfit, I ran up to the enemy during active combat and endeavored to damage them, only to be ignored completely. The proximate observation remained quite impressive, and observing foes flee, their appendages thrashing around, felt highly gratifying, yet it would have been exciting to successfully impact objects using my fiery projectiles.
