Anno 117: Pax Romana's Top Secret Turns Out to Be a Breathtaking First-Person Perspective.
Surprisingly — did you realize it's possible to experience Anno 117: Pax Romana using a first-person camera? If that’s your reaction, your surprise matches as I was when I discovered this concealed mode. Allow me to temporarily abandon managing my empire, entrust it to a capable deputy, commandere a carriage, and enjoy a ride around the classical city.
Activating the First-Person Feature
In its role as a city-builder, Anno 117: Pax Romana is normally experienced from an overhead perspective. But, should you input a hidden code — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on console — you can explore the realm as a regular inhabitant. Since a similar easter egg was part of Anno 1800, I felt excited to experience it in the latest installment, yet I had doubts it would operate before I discovered myself chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (possibly an unexpected bug — this feature tends to be a little buggy at times).
Exploring the Ancient Streets
After extracting myself, I strolled the bustling streets through my metropolis and toured shops, taverns, floral patches, and seafood collectors — it felt magnificent to observe the fruits of my labor using an entirely new viewpoint. I observed a variety of intricacies I wouldn’t have spotted from the top-down view: Doorway embellishments, an ass transporting a floral pail, fowl roaming freely, people relaxing on their verandas… Even just observing the design of a windowsill and the coating on a pillar is quite interesting for those not residing in classical times.
Further Than Mere Wandering
But there’s more to the first-person feature in Anno 117 than strolling along the road. I felt particularly pleased upon discovering that not only could I observe agricultural plots, but also access them. And despite my expectation structures would be inaccessible, I managed to access earthen quarries, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building while lessons were in session, and invade personal courtyards. Don't bother with door access (not even the developers allocated resources for that), but it’s entirely possible meander across a cereal plantation, see citizens working with tools and burdens, and take a peek inside any small shack when there's no doorway obstructing.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
While I was completely ready to see my metropolis represented in PlayStation 1 graphics, apart from certain rough movements and sometimes citizens positioned within a bench instead of on a bench, first-person mode looks much better than expected. The meticulously crafted materials (especially stone surfaces) shouldn't logically be this impressive in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You won't necessarily notice separate follicular elements, but you will see wall inscriptions, fiery particles from lamps, fading on bricks, pupils, and evergreen foliage. Evening, with glowing light sources and distant stellar illumination, is especially atmospheric, and proves significantly less intimidating compared to Anno 1800, now that the citizens don’t look like nightmarish entities these days.
Testing and Personalization
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective lacks official documentation, I opted to try different commands, 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 revert. I subsequently tried pressing certain numeric keys and discovered that I could change my representative's visual design. Amber garment? Red toga? Azure and violet outfit? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You might hold a weapon and defense, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; if you activate the engage command, you’ll fire burning arrows into the sky. Should you be curious, harming inhabitants is impossible (not that I’ve tried, of course).
Humor and Citizen Interactions
Yet, I didn't want to damage my population, as they're remarkably entertaining. Moments after I entered first-person mode, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that he “Can’t have a pet fox and if you offer additional fowl, your grandmother will be furious.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. One lovely local Celt then began complimenting my excellent cross-cultural strategies 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 Joy of Joyriding
Just when I thought I’d discovered all there is to discover in Anno 117: Pax Romana’s first-person mode, I found the joys of joyriding across historical settings. Totally unintentionally, I selected a carriage and quickly occupied the transport. Bovines, equines, even human-pulled carts; you can drive them all at your leisure. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, is pretty fast, although you shouldn't expect any GTA-like shenanigans — impacting citizens or additional vehicles cannot occur (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Fighting Restrictions
The only thing that disappointed me in Anno 117’s first-person mode was discovering my inability to participate in battle encounters. Sporting my soldier fit, I approached opposing forces amidst fighting and endeavored to damage them, only to be ignored completely. The close-up view was nonetheless magnificent, and observing foes flee, their appendages thrashing around, seemed enormously rewarding, though it might have been amazing to successfully impact objects using my fiery projectiles.
