Anno 117: Pax Romana's Top Secret Turns Out to Be a Breathtaking First-Person View.
Surprisingly — did you realize it's possible to experience the game Anno 117 from a first-person viewpoint? If you're thinking that, your surprise matches as my own reaction upon finding out this secret option. Excuse me while briefly leave my empire’s management, delegate it to a capable deputy, commandere a carriage, and go for a joyride through Ancient Rome.
How to Access the First-Person Mode
Being a city-building title, the game Anno 117 is normally experienced using a top-down camera. But, should you press a covert button sequence — including “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard alternatively “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on a controller — it becomes possible to roam the realm as a regular inhabitant. Given a comparable hidden feature was included in Anno 1800, I looked forward to experience it in the latest installment, though I was uncertain it would operate prior to being stuck in a Celtic building (which probably wasn’t intended — this feature is somewhat unstable occasionally).
Roaming the Streets of Rome
After extracting myself, I wandered the busy roads across my settlement and toured stalls, alehouses, floral patches, and seafood collectors — the experience was splendid to see all my hard work from a brand-new perspective. I observed a variety of intricacies that would escape notice from the top-down view: Entryway ornaments, 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.
Further Than Mere Wandering
Yet, the experience extends to the first-person feature in Anno 117 aside from meandering through streets. I was especially delighted the moment I learned that besides being able to observe crop lands, but also enter them. And although I’d assumed interiors would be restricted, I was able to enter earthen quarries, tour an esteemed educational structure during active classes, and invade personal courtyards. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the creators planned for that functionality), however, you can definitely wander through a grain field, observe people digging and transporting bags, and glance into any tiny hut provided the entrance is missing.
Appearance and Mood
Although I was fully prepared to witness my city rendered in PlayStation 1 graphics, excluding a few unpolished motions and sometimes citizens positioned in a bench instead of on a bench, the first-person view appears considerably improved over predictions. The intricately designed surfaces (particularly rock faces) are unexpectedly excellent in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You won't necessarily notice specific hair details, yet you will notice wall inscriptions, flames emitting from lights, brick decoloration, eye details, and conifer needles. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and celestial bodies twinkling afar, creates a particularly moody setting, and proves significantly less intimidating compared to Anno 1800, given that the populace appears unlike nightmarish entities anymore.
Discovery and Modification
Since Anno 117’s super-secret first-person mode has no guided tutorial, I chose to test various actions, and immediately located the options to jump, sprint, and zoom in or out — the zoom function permitting me to alternate between immersive and external perspectives and return. I then decided to hit some number buttons and found I could alter my representative's visual design. Amber garment? Red toga? Blue and purple toga? Or — perhaps even better — full armor? You may carry a sword and shield, or, preferably, wear an archer's uniform; if you hit the interaction button, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. Should you be curious, eliminating citizens cannot be done (not that I’ve tried, of course).
Amusement and Inhabitant Dialogues
However, I had no desire to injure my people, since they're incredibly amusing. Moments after I entered the first-person view, 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 elder will punish you.” Rightly so, Roman dad. A pleasant regional Celt then began complimenting my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by describing it as “Ideal combination,” while some cranky old lady opted to menace me: “Repeat that statement, and your disappearance will be permanent.”
The Fun of Vehicle Use
Just as I assumed I uncovered all possible content in Anno 117: Pax Romana’s first-person mode, I found the joys of joyriding through classical settlements. Completely unexpectedly, I interacted with a cart and was promptly seated on the box. Cattle, asses, even human-pulled carts; you may operate any of them freely. The donkey cart, in particular, is pretty fast, although you shouldn't expect open-world vehicular chaos — colliding with pedestrians or other carts is impossible (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Battle Constraints
The sole aspect that let me down regarding the first-person view was learning about my exclusion from in battle encounters. Equipped in warrior attire, I ran up to the enemy during active combat and attempted to attack them, only to be ignored completely. The proximate observation remained quite impressive, and seeing opponents retreat, their appendages thrashing around, proved very satisfying, though it might have been amazing to actually hit something with my burning arrows.
