Anno 117: Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Reveals Itself as a Stunning First-Person Perspective.
Hold on — were you aware it's possible to experience Anno 117 Pax Romana using a first-person camera? Should that be your response, you feel equally astonished as my own reaction when I discovered this concealed mode. Allow me to step away from managing my empire, delegate it to a reliable subordinate, commandere a carriage, and enjoy a ride through Ancient Rome.
Unlocking the First-Person Mode
As a city-building game, the game Anno 117 usually operates using a top-down camera. But, should you press a covert button sequence — including “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” using PC controls or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on console — you gain the ability to walk the realm as a regular inhabitant. Since a similar easter egg was part of the previous Anno title, I was eager to try it out in Ubisoft's newest game, but I wasn’t sure it would operate until I found myself chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (possibly an unexpected bug — this mode tends to be prone to glitches now and then).
Discovering the Ancient Streets
Upon freeing myself, I walked the busy roads of my city and explored stalls, alehouses, flower fields, and seafood collectors — it felt magnificent to see all my hard work through a fresh lens. I detected all kinds of details I might have missed from the top-down view: Doorway embellishments, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, chickens running loose, folks chilling on their balconies… Merely examining the shape of a window sill and the paint layers on a column proves fascinating to modern individuals unfamiliar with ancient life.
More Than Just Walking
But there’s more to Anno 117’s first-person mode than strolling along the road. I became extraordinarily excited when I found out that besides being able to look upon farming fields, but also access them. And even though I thought structures would be inaccessible, I could walk onto earthen quarries, tour an esteemed educational structure during active classes, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Avoid attempting to open doors (not even the developers 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 when there's no doorway obstructing.
Graphics and Ambiance
Even though I expected to observe my settlement depicted in PlayStation 1 graphics, apart from certain rough movements and the occasional civilian resting inside seating as opposed to atop a bench, first-person mode looks far superior to anticipations. The meticulously crafted materials (notably masonry elements) are unexpectedly excellent for a title that remains primarily overhead. You may not see separate follicular elements, however, you can observe writings on surfaces, flames emitting from lights, discoloration of masonry, iris elements, and conifer needles. The night, featuring dancing flames and distant stellar illumination, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and proves significantly less intimidating relative to the previous game, given that the populace appears unlike nightmarish entities anymore.
Discovery and Modification
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I decided to experiment a bit, and immediately located the abilities to leap, run, and changing perspective — the zoom function permitting me to switch between first and third-person views and return. I then experimented with various digit inputs and discovered that I could change my representative's visual design. Amber garment? Crimson attire? Blue and purple toga? Or — perhaps even better — full armor? You may carry a sword and shield, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; when you press the action key, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. Should you be curious, harming inhabitants is impossible (though I didn't test this, obviously).
Humor and Citizen Interactions
But I wouldn’t wish to harm my citizens anyway, since they're incredibly amusing. Shortly after I activated the first-person view, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that he “Can’t have a pet fox and if you feed it one more chicken, your elder will punish you.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. A friendly native Celtic person then proceeded to praise my outstanding integration methods by labeling it “Perfect fusion,” whereas an irritable elderly woman opted to menace me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Fun of Vehicle Use
Just as I assumed I uncovered all possible content in the title's first-person feature, I found the joys of joyriding across historical settings. Entirely by accident, I selected a carriage and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Bovines, equines, even human-pulled carts; you can drive them all at your leisure. The donkey-powered transport, notably, 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).
Combat Limitations
The single feature that frustrated me within the immersive perspective was learning about my exclusion from in combat situations. Equipped in warrior attire, I approached opposing forces in the midst of battle and tried to harm them, yet was completely overlooked. The front-row seat remained quite impressive, and observing foes flee, their appendages thrashing around, proved very satisfying, though it might have been amazing to successfully impact objects using my fiery projectiles.
