Anno 117's Pax Romana's Top Secret Turns Out to Be a Impressive First-Person View.
Hold on — were you aware it's possible to experience Anno 117: Pax Romana from a first-person viewpoint? If that’s your reaction, you feel equally astonished compared to my initial response when I discovered this hidden feature. I must step away from managing my empire, leave it in a capable deputy, borrow a cart, and take a spin through Ancient Rome.
Unlocking the First-Person Feature
As a city-building game, the game Anno 117 usually operates from an overhead perspective. But, should you press a covert button sequence — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” using PC controls alternatively “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on console — you can explore the realm as a regular inhabitant. Given a comparable hidden feature was included in the earlier game Anno 1800, I looked forward to try it out in the latest installment, yet I had doubts it would function before I discovered myself submerged in a structural glitch (likely not meant to happen — this feature tends to be prone to glitches now and then).
Exploring the Roman Cityscape
Once I crawled out, I walked the bustling streets across my settlement and explored shops, taverns, floral patches, and cockle pickers — it felt magnificent to see the fruits of my labor through a fresh lens. I detected a variety of intricacies that would escape notice from the top-down view: Entryway ornaments, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, chickens running loose, people relaxing on their verandas… Merely examining 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 felt particularly pleased when I found out that besides being able to look upon agricultural plots, but also step into them. And even though I thought structures would be inaccessible, I could walk onto mud extraction sites, investigate a respected schoolhouse while lessons were in session, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Avoid attempting to open doors (not even the creators planned for that functionality), however, you can definitely meander across a cereal plantation, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and take a peek inside any small shack provided the entrance is missing.
Graphics and Ambiance
While I was completely ready to observe my settlement depicted using primitive rendering, besides some crude animations and sometimes citizens positioned in a bench instead of on a bench, the first-person view appears much better than expected. The highly detailed textures (especially stone surfaces) really have no business being this good for a title that remains primarily overhead. You might not observe any individual strands of hair, but you will see wall inscriptions, sparks flying from torches, discoloration of masonry, iris elements, and pine tree leaves. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and stars shining in the distance, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and also a lot less scary versus the earlier title, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble terrifying apparitions these days.
Experimentation and Customization
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I chose to test various actions, and quickly discovered the abilities to leap, run, and adjusting the view — with the latter allowing me to change from first-person to third-person mode and return. I subsequently tried pressing certain numeric keys and learned I could modify my representative's visual design. Yellow toga? Crimson attire? Azure and violet outfit? Or — perhaps even better — full armor? You might hold a weapon and defense, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; if you activate the engage command, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. If you're interested, it’s not possible to kill civilians (not that I attempted, naturally).
Comedy and Population Encounters
Yet, I didn't want to damage my population, as they're remarkably entertaining. Shortly after I activated first-person mode, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that he “Can’t have a pet fox and should you provide another poultry, your grandmother will be furious.” Understandable stance, father character. One lovely local Celt then proceeded to praise my outstanding integration methods by labeling it “Perfect fusion,” while some cranky old lady 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 within the game's immersive perspective, I found the joys of joyriding in Ancient Rome. Totally unintentionally, I selected a carriage and quickly occupied the transport. Oxen, donkeys, even manually drawn vehicles; you may operate any of them freely. The donkey-powered transport, notably, travels rather rapidly, but don't anticipate any GTA-like shenanigans — colliding with pedestrians or other carts is impossible (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Battle Constraints
The single feature that frustrated me within the immersive perspective was learning about my exclusion from in battle encounters. Wearing my military outfit, I ran up to the enemy in the midst of battle and tried to harm them, yet was completely overlooked. The proximate observation was nonetheless magnificent, 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.
