Anno 117: Pax Romana's Hidden Gem Is a Breathtaking 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’re just as shocked as I was the moment I learned this hidden feature. Excuse me while temporarily abandon my empire’s management, leave it in a reliable subordinate, take a wagon, and go for a joyride through Ancient Rome.
Activating the First-Person Feature
As a city-building game, Anno 117: Pax Romana is typically played from a bird's-eye view. But, should you press a covert button sequence — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — you gain the ability to walk the empire as an ordinary Roman. Given a comparable hidden feature was included in Anno 1800, I felt excited to test it in the new release, though I was uncertain it would work until I found myself chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (which probably wasn’t intended — this mode is somewhat unstable occasionally).
Exploring the Streets of Rome
Once I crawled out, I walked the bustling streets across my settlement and visited markets, breweries, floral patches, and shellfish gatherers — the experience was splendid to observe all my hard work through a fresh lens. I noticed all kinds of details I wouldn’t have spotted from above: Doorway embellishments, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, chickens running loose, people relaxing on their verandas… Even just observing the shape of a window sill and the paint layers on a column becomes engaging to modern individuals unfamiliar with ancient life.
More Than Just Walking
Yet, the experience extends to the game's immersive perspective aside from meandering through streets. I felt particularly pleased the moment I learned that besides being able to look upon crop lands, but also step into them. And despite my expectation interiors would be restricted, I could walk onto clay pits, tour an esteemed educational structure as teaching was underway, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Avoid attempting to open doors (not even the developers planned for that functionality), yet it's completely feasible meander across a cereal plantation, see citizens working with tools and burdens, and look within any modest shelter when there's no doorway obstructing.
Appearance and Mood
While I was completely ready to witness my city rendered in PlayStation 1 graphics, besides some crude animations and periodic inhabitants sitting inside seating as opposed to atop a bench, the first-person view appears far superior to anticipations. The intricately designed surfaces (particularly rock faces) shouldn't logically be this impressive within a game that's fundamentally a city-builder. You might not observe separate follicular elements, but you will see wall inscriptions, fiery particles from lamps, discoloration of masonry, iris elements, and conifer needles. Evening, with glowing light sources and stars shining in the distance, creates a particularly moody setting, and feels much less frightening versus the earlier title, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble sleep paralysis demons these days.
Discovery and Modification
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I chose to test various actions, and immediately located the functions for jumping, dashing, and changing perspective — with the latter allowing me to change from first-person to third-person mode and back. I then decided to hit various digit inputs and found I could alter 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, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; when you press the action key, you’ll fire burning arrows into the sky. In case you’re wondering, harming inhabitants is impossible (not that I attempted, naturally).
Amusement and Inhabitant Dialogues
Yet, I didn't want to damage my population, as they're remarkably entertaining. Moments after I entered first-person mode, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and if you feed it one more chicken, your gran will have your head.” Rightly so, Roman dad. One lovely local Celt then proceeded to praise my excellent cross-cultural strategies by describing it as “Ideal combination,” meanwhile a grumpy senior female chose to intimidate me: “Repeat that statement, and your disappearance will be permanent.”
The Fun of Vehicle Use
Just when I thought I uncovered all possible content in the title's first-person feature, I experienced the pleasure of driving through classical settlements. Totally unintentionally, I selected a carriage and was promptly seated on the box. Cattle, asses, even manually drawn vehicles; you may operate any of them freely. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, travels rather rapidly, although you shouldn't expect any GTA-like shenanigans — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (once more, not admitting any attempts).
Combat Limitations
The only thing that disappointed me regarding the first-person view was learning about my exclusion from in combat situations. Wearing my military outfit, I charged toward adversaries in the midst of battle and tried to harm them, yet was completely overlooked. The proximate observation remained quite impressive, and seeing opponents retreat, their arms flailing about, felt highly gratifying, but it would’ve been cool to actually hit something via my incendiary bolts.