Anno 117: Pax Romana's Hidden Gem Turns Out to Be a Impressive First-Person View.
Hold on — were you aware it's possible to experience Anno 117: Pax Romana in first-person? Should that be your response, your surprise matches as I was upon finding out this secret option. Excuse me while briefly leave managing my empire, leave it in a trusted assistant, commandere a carriage, and enjoy a ride across the Roman world.
Activating the First-Person Feature
Being a city-building title, the game Anno 117 is normally experienced from a bird's-eye view. However, if you enter a secret combination — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on console — you can explore the empire as an ordinary Roman. Given a comparable hidden feature appeared in the previous Anno title, I felt excited to test it in the latest installment, though I was uncertain it would operate prior to being stuck in a Celtic building (likely not meant to happen — this mode is prone to glitches now and then).
Roaming the Streets of Rome
Once I crawled out, I walked the busy roads through my metropolis and toured shops, taverns, floral patches, and seafood collectors — it felt magnificent to witness my diligent efforts through a fresh lens. I observed numerous fine points I wouldn’t have spotted when viewing from overhead: Entryway ornaments, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, fowl roaming freely, citizens lounging on their terraces… Simply noticing the design of a windowsill and the coating on a pillar proves fascinating to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
Further Than Mere Wandering
But there’s more to the game's immersive perspective beyond simply walking the paths. I was especially delighted the moment I learned that I could not just view farming fields, but also enter them. And even though I thought interiors would be restricted, I managed to access earthen quarries, investigate a respected schoolhouse as teaching was underway, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the creators have the budget for that), however, you can definitely stroll around a barley farm, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and take a peek inside any small shack when there's no doorway obstructing.
Graphics and Ambiance
While I was completely ready to see my metropolis represented in PlayStation 1 graphics, apart from certain rough movements and sometimes citizens positioned inside seating instead of on a bench, first-person mode looks far superior to anticipations. The highly detailed textures (particularly rock faces) are unexpectedly excellent within a game that's fundamentally a city-builder. You may not see separate follicular elements, but you will see engravings on walls, flames emitting from lights, fading on bricks, eye details, and evergreen foliage. The night, featuring dancing flames and celestial bodies twinkling afar, creates a particularly moody setting, and feels much less frightening versus the earlier title, given that the populace appears unlike sleep paralysis demons these days.
Discovery and Modification
Given the covert first-person feature doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I opted to try different commands, and immediately located the abilities to leap, run, and changing perspective — the zoom function permitting me to change from first-person to third-person mode and return. I subsequently tried pressing some number buttons and found I could alter my representative's visual design. Yellow toga? Ruby clothing? Azure and violet outfit? Or — maybe superior — complete battle gear? You may carry a sword and shield, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; when you press the action key, you shoot flaming projectiles upward. In case you’re wondering, harming inhabitants is impossible (not that I attempted, naturally).
Comedy and Population Encounters
Yet, I didn't want to damage my population, as they're remarkably entertaining. Only seconds after I landed the immersive perspective, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that “Owning a fox is prohibited and if you feed it one more chicken, your gran will have your head.” Understandable stance, father character. A pleasant regional Celt then started applauding my outstanding integration methods by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” while some cranky old lady decided to threaten me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Joy of Joyriding
At the moment I believed I had found everything available in Anno 117: Pax Romana’s first-person mode, I found the joys of joyriding across historical settings. Completely unexpectedly, I interacted with a cart and quickly occupied the transport. Oxen, donkeys, even people-powered transports; you may operate any of them freely. The donkey cart, in particular, moves quite quickly, though you shouldn’t imagine any GTA-like shenanigans — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (again, not saying I’ve tried).
Fighting Restrictions
The sole aspect that let me down within the immersive perspective was finding out I couldn’t partake in combat situations. Equipped in warrior attire, I charged toward adversaries in the midst of battle and tried to harm them, only to be ignored completely. The front-row seat was still rather spectacular, and seeing opponents retreat, their limbs waving wildly, seemed enormously rewarding, but it would’ve been cool to successfully impact objects via my incendiary bolts.
