Anno 117 Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Is a Breathtaking First-Person Mode.
Surprisingly — did you realize gamers have the option to enjoy Anno 117: Pax Romana from a first-person viewpoint? Should that be your response, you feel equally astonished as my own reaction when I discovered this hidden feature. Allow me to temporarily abandon my empire’s management, delegate it to a reliable subordinate, commandere a carriage, and enjoy a ride around the classical city.
Unlocking the First-Person Feature
As a city-building game, Anno 117 Pax Romana is normally experienced from a bird's-eye view. Yet, when you input a hidden code — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on a controller — you gain the ability to walk the empire as an ordinary Roman. Given a comparable hidden feature was included in Anno 1800, I was eager to experience it in the latest installment, yet I had doubts it would function until I found myself stuck in a Celtic building (possibly an unexpected bug — this mode tends to be prone to glitches now and then).
Exploring the Roman Cityscape
After extracting myself, I strolled the bustling streets of my city and visited markets, breweries, flower fields, and shellfish gatherers — the experience was splendid to see all my hard work through a fresh lens. I noticed all kinds of details I wouldn’t have spotted from the top-down view: Front door decorations, an ass transporting a floral pail, fowl roaming freely, folks chilling on their balconies… Even just observing the shape of a window sill and the coloration on a post is quite interesting to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
Further Than Mere Wandering
However, there's additional content to the game's immersive perspective than strolling along the road. I felt particularly pleased the moment I learned that besides being able to look upon agricultural plots, but also step into them. And despite my expectation structures would be inaccessible, I managed to access earthen quarries, investigate a respected schoolhouse as teaching was underway, and invade personal courtyards. Avoid attempting to open doors (not even the creators have the budget for that), but it’s entirely possible wander through a grain field, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and take a peek inside any small shack as long as the door is absent.
Appearance and Mood
Although I was fully prepared to see my metropolis represented with outdated visual quality, besides some crude animations and the occasional civilian resting inside seating instead of on a bench, first-person mode looks considerably improved over predictions. The highly detailed textures (particularly rock faces) really have no business being this good for a title that remains primarily overhead. You won't necessarily notice separate follicular elements, but you will see wall inscriptions, flames emitting from lights, brick decoloration, iris elements, and evergreen foliage. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and stars shining in the distance, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and proves significantly less intimidating versus the earlier title, now that the citizens don’t look like nightmarish entities these days.
Experimentation and Customization
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective has no guided tutorial, I decided to experiment a bit, and quickly discovered the abilities to leap, run, and adjusting the view — the zoom function permitting me to switch between first and third-person views and return. I then decided to hit certain numeric keys and found I could alter my avatar's look. Amber garment? Ruby clothing? Azure and violet outfit? Or — perhaps even better — full armor? You may carry a sword and shield, 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’ve tried, of course).
Comedy and Population Encounters
But I wouldn’t wish to harm my citizens anyway, because they’re way too funny. Only seconds after I landed the immersive perspective, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and should you provide another poultry, your gran will have your head.” Understandable stance, father character. One lovely local Celt then started applauding my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by labeling it “Perfect fusion,” while some cranky old lady chose to intimidate me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Fun of Vehicle Use
Just as I assumed I uncovered all possible content in the title's first-person feature, I experienced the pleasure of driving across historical settings. Entirely by accident, I selected a carriage and quickly occupied the transport. Bovines, equines, even human-pulled carts; you may operate any of them freely. The donkey-powered transport, notably, is pretty fast, but don't anticipate any GTA-like shenanigans — impacting citizens or additional vehicles cannot occur (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Fighting Restrictions
The sole aspect that let me down in Anno 117’s first-person mode was discovering my inability to participate in any fighting. Equipped in warrior attire, I ran up to the enemy in the midst of battle and attempted to attack them, yet was completely overlooked. The proximate observation remained quite impressive, and seeing opponents retreat, their limbs waving wildly, felt highly gratifying, yet it would have been exciting to effectively strike targets via my incendiary bolts.