Anno 117 Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Turns Out to Be a Impressive First-Person View.
Surprisingly — did you realize it's possible to experience the game Anno 117 in first-person? If you're thinking that, you’re just as shocked as I was when I discovered this secret option. I must briefly leave overseeing my civilization, entrust it to a reliable subordinate, take a wagon, and go for a joyride through Ancient Rome.
Activating the First-Person View
Being a city-building title, the game Anno 117 usually operates using a top-down camera. Yet, when you press a covert button sequence — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on a controller — you can explore the realm as a regular inhabitant. Because an analogous secret appeared in Anno 1800, I felt excited to experience it in the new release, yet I had doubts it would function before I discovered myself chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (which probably wasn’t intended — this mode tends to be prone to glitches now and then).
Roaming the Ancient Streets
Once I crawled out, I strolled the lively avenues across my settlement and visited stalls, alehouses, floral patches, and cockle pickers — the experience was splendid to see all my hard work from a brand-new perspective. I observed numerous fine points I might have missed when viewing from overhead: Entryway ornaments, an ass transporting a floral pail, poultry scattering about, people relaxing on their verandas… Even just observing the design of a windowsill and the paint layers on a column proves fascinating to modern individuals unfamiliar with ancient life.
Beyond Simple Strolling
But there’s more to the game's immersive perspective than strolling along the road. I felt particularly pleased upon discovering that besides being able to observe farming fields, but also enter them. And although I’d assumed interiors would be restricted, I could walk onto earthen quarries, tour an esteemed educational structure as teaching was underway, and invade personal courtyards. Don't bother with door access (not even the studio allocated resources for that), however, you can definitely meander across a cereal plantation, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and look within any modest shelter as long as the door is absent.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
While I was completely ready to see my metropolis represented in PlayStation 1 graphics, besides some crude animations and the occasional civilian resting within a bench instead of on a bench, the immersive perspective seems far superior to anticipations. The meticulously crafted materials (notably masonry elements) really have no business being this good in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You may not see any individual strands of hair, but you will see wall inscriptions, flames emitting from lights, brick decoloration, pupils, and evergreen foliage. The night, featuring dancing flames and stars shining in the distance, is especially atmospheric, and also a lot less scary versus the earlier title, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble terrifying apparitions these days.
Discovery and Modification
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective has no guided tutorial, I decided to experiment a bit, and quickly discovered the functions for jumping, dashing, and changing perspective — with the latter allowing me to change from first-person to third-person mode and back. I then experimented with certain numeric keys and learned I could modify my character’s appearance. Yellow toga? Red toga? Blue and purple toga? Or — maybe superior — complete battle gear? You can wield a blade and protection, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; when you press the action key, you’ll fire burning arrows into the sky. In case you’re wondering, harming inhabitants is impossible (not that I’ve tried, of course).
Amusement and Inhabitant Dialogues
Yet, I didn't want to damage my population, since they're incredibly amusing. Moments after I entered first-person mode, I overheard a father telling his child that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and if you feed it one more chicken, your gran will have your head.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. One lovely local Celt then began complimenting my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by describing it as “Ideal combination,” meanwhile a grumpy senior female decided to threaten me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Thrill of Transportation
Just when I thought I uncovered all possible content within the game's immersive perspective, I found the joys of joyriding across historical settings. Entirely by accident, I clicked on a wagon and was promptly seated on the box. Bovines, equines, even manually drawn vehicles; you can drive them all at your leisure. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, travels rather rapidly, though you shouldn’t imagine Grand Theft Auto-style mischief — impacting citizens or additional vehicles cannot occur (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Combat Limitations
The single feature that frustrated me regarding the first-person view was discovering my inability to participate in battle encounters. Wearing my military outfit, I charged toward adversaries during active combat and attempted to attack them, but was entirely disregarded. The close-up view remained quite impressive, and watching the enemy run, their arms flailing about, felt highly gratifying, yet it would have been exciting to effectively strike targets using my fiery projectiles.
