Anno 117's Pax Romana's Top Secret Reveals Itself as a Impressive First-Person Mode.
Surprisingly — did you realize you can play Anno 117: Pax Romana using a first-person camera? If that’s your reaction, you feel equally astonished as my own reaction upon finding out this secret option. Excuse me while step away from managing my empire, leave it in a reliable subordinate, commandere a carriage, and go for a joyride around the classical city.
Activating the First-Person View
As a city-building game, the game Anno 117 usually operates from a bird's-eye view. But, should you press a covert button sequence — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard alternatively “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on console — you gain the ability to walk your domain as a common citizen. Given a comparable hidden feature was included in the previous Anno title, I felt excited to try it out in the latest installment, but I wasn’t sure it would function until I found myself submerged in a structural glitch (possibly an unexpected bug — this feature is somewhat unstable occasionally).
Roaming the Ancient Streets
After extracting myself, I walked the lively avenues across my settlement and toured markets, breweries, floral patches, and shellfish gatherers — the experience was splendid to witness all my hard work through a fresh lens. I detected a variety of intricacies that would escape notice from above: Front door decorations, an ass transporting a floral pail, chickens running loose, folks chilling on their balconies… 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
However, there's additional content to the game's immersive perspective aside from meandering through streets. I felt particularly pleased upon discovering that I could not just look upon agricultural plots, but also step into them. And despite my expectation structures would be inaccessible, I could walk onto earthen quarries, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building as teaching was underway, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Avoid attempting to open doors (not even the studio planned for that functionality), however, you can definitely meander across a cereal plantation, see citizens working with tools and burdens, and take a peek inside any small shack as long as the door is absent.
Graphics and Ambiance
While I was completely ready to see my metropolis represented using primitive rendering, excluding a few unpolished motions and the occasional civilian resting within a bench as opposed to atop a bench, the first-person view appears considerably improved over predictions. The intricately designed surfaces (especially stone surfaces) really have no business being this good for a title that remains primarily overhead. You won't necessarily notice any individual strands of hair, but you will see engravings on walls, fiery particles from lamps, fading on bricks, pupils, and pine tree leaves. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and distant stellar illumination, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and also a lot less scary relative to the previous game, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble sleep paralysis demons these days.
Testing and Personalization
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective lacks official documentation, I decided to experiment a bit, and promptly found the abilities to leap, run, and changing perspective — the last option enabling me to switch between first and third-person views and back. I then decided to hit certain numeric keys and found I could alter my character’s appearance. Amber garment? Ruby clothing? Sapphire and amethyst dress? Or — perhaps even better — full armor? You can wield a blade and protection, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; if you activate the engage command, you shoot flaming projectiles upward. In case you’re wondering, it’s not possible to kill civilians (not that I’ve tried, of course).
Humor and Citizen Interactions
But I wouldn’t wish to harm my citizens anyway, as they're remarkably entertaining. Only seconds after I landed the immersive perspective, I heard a parent advising their offspring that he “Can’t have a pet fox and if you offer additional fowl, your grandmother will be furious.” Rightly so, Roman dad. A pleasant regional Celt then proceeded to praise my excellent cross-cultural strategies by describing it as “Ideal combination,” whereas an irritable elderly woman decided to threaten me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Thrill of Transportation
At the moment I believed I’d discovered all there is to discover in the title's first-person feature, I experienced the pleasure of driving in Ancient Rome. Totally unintentionally, I interacted with a cart and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Bovines, equines, even people-powered transports; you can control each one as desired. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, travels rather rapidly, although you shouldn't expect open-world vehicular chaos — colliding with pedestrians or other carts is impossible (once more, not admitting any attempts).
Battle Constraints
The only thing that disappointed me within the immersive perspective was learning about my exclusion from in combat situations. Equipped in warrior attire, I approached opposing forces amidst fighting and endeavored to damage them, yet was completely overlooked. The front-row seat remained quite impressive, and seeing opponents retreat, their appendages thrashing around, proved very satisfying, but it would’ve been cool to successfully impact objects via my incendiary bolts.