Anno 117: Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Is a Breathtaking First-Person Mode.
Wait — did you know you can play the game Anno 117 from a first-person viewpoint? If you're thinking that, you’re just as shocked as I was the moment I learned this secret option. Excuse me while briefly leave managing my empire, entrust it to a trusted assistant, commandere a carriage, and take a spin through Ancient Rome.
How to Access the First-Person View
Being a city-building title, the game Anno 117 is normally experienced from a bird's-eye view. But, should you press a covert button sequence — including “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard alternatively “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on console — you gain the ability to walk your domain as a common citizen. Given a comparable hidden feature appeared in the earlier game Anno 1800, I felt excited to experience it in the new release, but I wasn’t sure it would operate prior to being stuck in a Celtic building (which probably wasn’t intended — this feature tends to be prone to glitches now and then).
Roaming the Streets of Rome
Upon freeing myself, I walked the bustling streets of my city and visited markets, breweries, flower fields, and shellfish gatherers — it was glorious to see my diligent efforts using an entirely new viewpoint. I observed a variety of intricacies I wouldn’t have spotted from the top-down view: Entryway ornaments, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, fowl roaming freely, citizens lounging on their terraces… Even just observing the form of a ledge and the coating on a pillar becomes engaging for those not residing in classical times.
Further Than Mere Wandering
However, there's additional content to the first-person feature in Anno 117 aside from meandering through streets. I was especially delighted the moment I learned that I could not just look upon crop lands, but also enter them. And even though I thought interiors would be restricted, I was able to enter clay pits, tour an esteemed educational structure during active classes, and intrude into private gardens. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the creators allocated resources for that), yet it's completely feasible wander through a grain field, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and take a peek inside any small shack as long as the door is absent.
Appearance and Mood
While I was completely ready to see my metropolis represented with outdated visual quality, besides some crude animations and sometimes citizens positioned inside seating instead of on a bench, the immersive perspective seems far superior to anticipations. The meticulously crafted materials (particularly rock faces) really have no business being this good for a title that remains primarily overhead. You won't necessarily notice separate follicular elements, however, you can observe wall inscriptions, flames emitting from lights, brick decoloration, iris elements, and conifer needles. The night, featuring dancing flames and celestial bodies twinkling afar, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and also a lot less scary versus the earlier title, now that the citizens don’t look like terrifying apparitions these days.
Testing and Personalization
Given the covert first-person feature has no guided tutorial, I opted to try different commands, and immediately located 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 subsequently tried pressing some number buttons and discovered that I could change my character’s appearance. Yellow toga? Crimson attire? Azure and violet outfit? Or — perhaps even better — full armor? You might hold a weapon and defense, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; if you activate the engage command, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. Should you be curious, it’s not possible to kill civilians (not that I attempted, naturally).
Comedy and Population Encounters
However, I had no desire to injure my people, as they're remarkably entertaining. Shortly after I activated the first-person view, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that “Owning a fox is prohibited 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 outstanding integration methods by describing it as “Ideal combination,” whereas an irritable elderly woman decided to threaten me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Joy of Joyriding
Just when I thought I had found everything available in the title's first-person feature, I experienced the pleasure of driving across historical settings. Totally unintentionally, I clicked on a wagon and quickly occupied the transport. Oxen, donkeys, even manually drawn vehicles; you can drive them all at your leisure. The donkey-powered transport, notably, moves quite quickly, although you shouldn't expect any GTA-like shenanigans — colliding with pedestrians or other carts is impossible (again, not saying I’ve tried).
Combat Limitations
The sole aspect that let me down within the immersive perspective was finding out I couldn’t partake in battle encounters. Wearing my military outfit, I ran up to the enemy during active combat and endeavored to damage them, only to be ignored completely. The front-row seat was still rather spectacular, and seeing opponents retreat, their appendages thrashing around, proved very satisfying, yet it would have been exciting to effectively strike targets with my burning arrows.
