Anno 117 Pax Romana's Top Secret Is a Impressive First-Person View.
Hold on — were you aware gamers have the option to enjoy the game Anno 117 using a first-person camera? If you're thinking that, your surprise matches as my own reaction upon finding out this hidden feature. Allow me to step away from managing my empire, entrust it to a trusted assistant, commandere a carriage, and enjoy a ride across the Roman world.
How to Access the First-Person Mode
Being a city-building title, Anno 117: Pax Romana is typically played using a top-down camera. However, if you press a covert button sequence — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — it becomes possible to roam the empire as an ordinary Roman. Because an analogous secret was included in the earlier game Anno 1800, I felt excited to test it in Ubisoft's newest game, though I was uncertain it would function before I discovered myself submerged in a structural glitch (which probably wasn’t intended — this option can be a little buggy at times).
Discovering the Streets of Rome
Upon freeing myself, I strolled the bustling streets across my settlement and visited stalls, alehouses, floral patches, and cockle pickers — it felt magnificent to see all my hard work using an entirely new viewpoint. I noticed a variety of intricacies I wouldn’t have spotted when viewing from overhead: Front door decorations, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, poultry scattering about, people relaxing on their verandas… Merely examining the form of a ledge and the paint layers on a column is quite interesting for those not residing in classical times.
Beyond Simple Strolling
Yet, the experience extends to the game's immersive perspective than strolling along the road. I became extraordinarily excited when I found out that besides being able to view agricultural plots, but also step into them. And although I’d assumed the building models would be off-limits, I was able to enter clay pits, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building as teaching was underway, and intrude into private gardens. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the creators planned for that functionality), however, you can definitely wander through a grain field, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and glance into any tiny hut provided the entrance is missing.
Appearance and Mood
Even though I expected to witness my city rendered in PlayStation 1 graphics, excluding a few unpolished motions 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 (especially stone surfaces) are unexpectedly excellent in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You might not observe separate follicular elements, yet you will notice wall inscriptions, fiery particles from lamps, fading on bricks, iris elements, and evergreen foliage. The night, featuring dancing flames and celestial bodies twinkling afar, creates a particularly moody setting, and also a lot less scary compared to Anno 1800, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble sleep paralysis demons these days.
Testing and Personalization
Given the covert first-person feature lacks official documentation, I decided to experiment a bit, and promptly found the functions for jumping, dashing, and adjusting the view — with the latter allowing me to switch between first and third-person views and back. I then decided to hit some number buttons and discovered that I could change my avatar's look. Golden robe? Ruby clothing? Blue and purple toga? Or — perhaps even better — full armor? You can wield a blade and protection, or, preferably, wear an archer's uniform; if you hit the interaction button, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. In case you’re wondering, harming inhabitants is impossible (though I didn't test this, obviously).
Comedy and Population Encounters
Yet, I didn't want to damage my population, since they're incredibly amusing. Only seconds after I landed first-person mode, I heard a parent advising their offspring that he “Can’t have a pet fox and if you offer additional fowl, your gran will have your head.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. One lovely local Celt then proceeded to praise my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies 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 uncovered all possible content in the title's first-person feature, I experienced the pleasure of driving in Ancient Rome. Completely unexpectedly, I interacted with a cart and was promptly seated on the box. Bovines, equines, even human-pulled carts; you can drive them all at your leisure. The donkey-powered transport, notably, travels rather rapidly, but don't anticipate Grand Theft Auto-style mischief — colliding with pedestrians or other carts is impossible (again, not saying I’ve tried).
Battle Constraints
The sole aspect that let me down within the immersive perspective was discovering my inability to participate in battle encounters. Sporting my soldier fit, I ran up to the enemy during active combat and tried to harm them, only to be ignored completely. The close-up view was nonetheless magnificent, and observing foes flee, their arms flailing about, proved very satisfying, yet it would have been exciting to actually hit something using my fiery projectiles.
