Magic System : discography
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Album : Ki Dit Mié Year : 2008 |
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Album : Cessa kie la vérité Year : 2005 |
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Album : Un gaou a Paris Label : J.P.S. Production Year : 2003 |
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Album : Poisson d'avril Year : 2001 |
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Album : Premier gaou Label : Sonodisc Year : 1999 |
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News about Magic System
Video: Magic System arrival in the USA
MAGIC SYSTEM & THEIR BAND ARRIVING
TO JFK AIRPORT AT 12 NOON ON THURSDAY OCTOBER 9 2008
Source : africahit.com | 2008-10-09 12:43:00.0
Concert: Magic System Live for the 1st time in Washington, DC on October 12th!
Magic System's recordings, in the Zouglou dance style, have featured in the charts throughout Africa (selling over 1.5 million CDs), the West Indies and in France, where the band became one of the most popular modern African artists. They will perform live in Washington, Dc on October 12th at F.U.R( 33 Patterson Street NE, Washington DC 20002).
Source : africahit.com | 2008-09-26 04:36:00.0
Magic System Entertains Revelers at B-Club VIP
The popular band Magic System entertained an enthusiastic crowd this weekend during the after party at B-Club VIP. The audience composed of business elites and others partied till the wee hours of the evening.
Source : AllAfrica | 2008-08-06 14:19:32.0
Ivorian band Magic System may have sold lots of albums worldwide, but for this group based in France, home is where the heart is. via AlertNet
Source : Topix.net | 2007-10-10 12:10:37.0
Ivorian Band Performs in Both Sides of Divided Country
"They are a band that is very close to the people. They are very simple and appreciated by everyone and obviously over there [in Ivory Coast] people do follow all the problems they talk about in their songs."
Listen to Wellman report Efforts to reunite war-divided Ivory Coast have been fraught with difficulty, but some say the Ivorian band Magic System has been able to bring people together in a way politicians have ... via Voice of America
Source : Topix.net | 2007-09-16 03:42:11.0
Ivorian Band Performs in Both Sides of Divided Country
Some say Ivory Coast band Magic System has been able to bring people together in ways politicians have not
Source : voanews.com | 2007-09-16 01:06:28.0
Ivorian Band Performs in Both Sides of Divided Country
Some say Ivory Coast band Magic System has been able to bring people together in ways politicians have not
Source : voanews.com | 2007-09-16 00:36:27.0
Ivorian rags-to-riches band fetes success
"That is in some ways Magic System's strength. We've always stayed close to our roots no matter what success we've had."
Singing of poverty, ambition, love and war, Ivory Coast's biggest musical export Magic System has had a dizzying 10-year rise to fame transforming the trials and joys of Ivorian life into song. via Scotsman.com
Source : Topix.net | 2007-09-10 16:25:43.0
Ivorian rags-to-riches band fetes success
(Reuters)
Reuters - Singing of poverty,
ambition, love and war, Ivory Coast's biggest musical export
Magic System has had a dizzying 10-year rise to fame
transforming the trials and joys of Ivorian life into song.
Source : Yahoo! News | 2007-09-10 15:16:17.0
PSP Fanboy review: Dragoneer's Aria
Filed under: Reviews, Dragoneer's Aria
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In a word, no. But what good is a review with one word? We'll go through the main points of the game, highlighting the bad things first and ending with what we thought was swell. There are a lot of poor design choices in this game -- the pacing, the dialogue, the graphics, the battle system, the loading, the ... well, you get the idea. So, how could one possibly enjoy playing this game if all of those elements are doling out problems? It's not that hard, really, but you've got to be more than patient which most gamers, admittedly, aren't.
Dragoneer's Aria is an RPG in every sense of the word: girly man main character, dragons, elves, spirits, and white-haired bad guys wearing black with big swords. Have you seen this formula before? You should have, since it's been in every standard fantasy RPG, ever. In this, though, you have to protect the dragons, which becomes the main task of the game. The first half entails your visiting every dragon's respective area, either watching them die and fighting a boss, fighting a boss, watching them die, or some weird combination of both or neither. After that you take it upon yourself to track down the evil black dragon, Nidhogg, in order to seal it away and protect the world. That's a very bare bones analysis of the game's plot structure, but it's really all you need to know.
First off, we've got to talk about the graphics. Why first? Because tricking people into a purchase with a pretty face is the simplest route to go and we'll warn you now: the graphics appear nice, but there's a reason. There is a ton of tearing and graphical glitches -- practically every wall and character has lines you can see through, which can be pretty annoying to look at after a few seconds. The graphics also look nice on the surface because of one of the oldest tricks in the developer's book: palette swapping. After trudging through twenty hours of the game to a less-than-stellar ending, I think I may have faced off against, at most, a dozen different kinds of enemies. Sure, a lot had different names, but they were the same damn thing, just a different color. Another thing to suffer from the supposed graphical overhaul are spell effects. They suck. Water magic? It's a blue light! Wind magic? It's a green light! Wow, what utter crap. Luckily, the battle system is so broken you won't bother using magic anyway. More on that later.
We'd be remiss if we didn't craft a ton of parallels to similar RPG's. Obvious influences stem from five sources: Magna Carta: Tears of Blood, Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy VII, Suikoden, and Romancing SaGa. Yes, it's an amalgamation of all these games and we'll explain why. Exploring the field is a lot like Magna Carta in that it's very annoying. There's no world map except in your party menu, you can see your enemies, and the character designs are fairly reminiscent to the Korean artist who did the Magna Carta characters. That last one didn't quite fit, but it's still relevant. Like Final Fantasy II, your skills level up as you use them. On the field, every character has a different "field skill" that levels as you use it (which requires Energy -- more on that later). Sadly, only two of these are useful: Dash and Mana Sea. The former lets you run and for the record, not running is very annoying (again, like Magna Carta). The latter slowly heals your party as your Energy is drained away. As they level, the effects last longer but don't grow in potency. Not sure who thought that would be a good idea.
Another area where your skills improve through use is in battle. It's time to discuss the battle system and the Energy bar. See, you have this energy bar that stores up to 1000 Energy, which converts to 10 Mana. Using any special skill takes away 100 (including the aforementioned field skills), but as you level up your magic or your "Rush Attack" skill (essentially attacking the number of times your skill level dictates, i.e. level 5 = 5 attacks), you can choose to take away 200, 300, or even 1000 as the levels allow. How do you gain Energy? Attacking grants you 50 Energy and successful guards grant you 100. But with guarding, you have a Magna Carta-esque wheel of luck where you need to successfully hit five colored ... things ... to completely block an attack. You can hit less than all five, but you'll still get hurt and still get energy. Even with four members in the party, gathering enough energy to do anything worthwhile is beyond a hassle (you'd need at least 400 energy for a single round if you want to do more than attack). Enter one characters battle skill: Mana Boost. You should use this all the time. It raises one characters Energy accumulation from 50 to 300 (450 when maxed) with a successful attack. This way you can have two characters using special skills while the other two keep the Energy bar close to full. It's the only strategy I found while playing the game to keep things moving.
You'll need to keep things moving because the battle system is slower than the death of a sun -- yes, it takes billions of years to complete a battle. We're not sure if it's because Nippon Ichi thought they could hide loading every attack animation mid-battle by having dramatic pauses or if the system was intentionally set up to elongate the game's story. In fact, everything seems to be created to stretch things out as long as possible in this game and that's very irritating. We said it before, but the battle system is so very broken because of the impossibly difficult task of gaining enough energy to appropriately level up your skills and the speed at which battle take place. I said magic was useless and it is. Why use a weak-ass wind spell when one character has a special wind skill (allocated through Dragon Orbs and called Dragon Skills) that does a ton more damage and when coupled with another element (in this case, Earth) will result in a third combo attack? It renders magic useless. Why use status effect magic at all? It just drags the battle on longer. Why use healing magic? One character has a skill that completely heals you for a measly 100 Energy. Later in the game, anyone else using a Heal magic needs at least 300 energy to heal you completely. Broken! Leveling magic is a waste, so you'll end up working your battle skills, Rush Attack, and Dragon Skills the most, since they're relatively cheap to perform.
The whole magic system is reminiscent of the Materia system from Final Fantasy VII, since you can only cast certain magics when they're equipped to your armor. However, unlike FFVII, you can never permanently learn the moves, which is really, really foolish. The magic does have shared levels, so if one character levels Heal up to, say, 23, another character can equip it and have the same level of experience. This is not so with the Dragon Orbs -- they're set to level one for every character until they use them.
The game pays homage to things like Romancing SaGa and, to a lesser extent, Ar Tonelico by having a very detailed and often overwhelming crafting system. Yes, Romancing SaGa had a crafting system and it was a lot more in-depth than many casual gamers gave it credit for ... especially Unlimited Saga, but let's not go there. You buy recipes from stores, collect items (which generally involves buying more items to create other items to create ... you get the idea), then make weapons, armor, items, and ingredients that are not only far better than standard weapons, but have elements attached to it that increase a multitude of your skills. This is actually a pretty nice system and is integrated decently, but it suffers from the usual drawbacks: finding some items is a lot harder than it should be, recipes aren't available until they're practically obsolete, and there's a ton of inventory for you to wade through. Your enjoyment is dependent on how hardcore you are into RPGs.
There isn't much else to speak of besides the experience system. It hails towards the Suikoden titles, or even Final Fantasy VIII, as you only need 500 points of experience to level up, ever. The enemies come in varying strengths and give you different amounts of experience relative to their level and your own. Fight a hard enemy? Around 200 experience. Easy enemy? Maybe 15. This forces you to keep moving forward, unless you just want some money. If you get into the crafting system, you'll need a lot of money.
This review sounded pretty negative, didn't it? The battle system is slow and the broken mechanics make leveling your magic completely useless. There is a ton of loading, the graphics seem haphazardly slapped together and armed to the teeth with palette swapping abilities. The crafting system is all right, but a little too much for casual gamers. The story is cliche, cheesy, and the cutscenes very near embarrassing to watch around others. At least Nippon Ichi, as always, included the full Japanese language voice tracks. But if you put all those together and retain a strong sense of patience, develop your own strategy and give the game some time, you might find yourself enjoying it. You'd have to be really hardcore into RPGs, though, as this game is not for everybody. You want to know the dirty truth? I actually like this game quite a bit, but since this is a review, I'm not going to feign ignorance to everything wrong with it. If you're just looking for a role-playing fix, by all means, direct your attention to Brave Story or Jeanne D'Arc. Leave Dragoneer's Aria for those who really, really want to torture themselves.
PSP Fanboy Score: 6.5Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Source : PSP Fanboy | 2007-09-01 14:00:00.0
Ricardo Signes: rpg system battle: true20 versus d20
As I continue to putter about (mostly in my head as I walk to and from the bus) on the fantasty RPG that I plan to run in 2009 or so, I've been trying to decide what set of mechanics to use. I had initially thought I'd use Dungeons and Dragons (the "d20 system") with a highly modified magic system. I was intrigued, though, by True20. It's a d20-derived system that attempts to simplify a lot of mechanics. There are three basic classes. The only die you ever need is a single d20. It replaces D&D's bookloads of spells with a small catalog of powers, which is likely to be great for what I want to do.
So far, I'm just not so sure about its combat system. Here's a quote from the official True20 web site:
True20 even does away with point accounting: no keeping track of hit points, spell points, fatigue points, and so forth. True20 uses various conditions to describe exactly what's happening in the game quickly and easily; so you can say your character is "bruised" or "staggered" rather than "down 11 hit points" or "exhausted" rather than "only having 4 fatigue points left."
Maybe this is the programmer in me, but I think it's much easier to account for points than adjectives. The sci-fi RPG that I'm running now is using (quite successfully, I think) the Storyteller System (d10) from second edition World of Darkness games, only slighly modified. In it, a character's sheet has a section like this:
+--- HEALTH --------------+
| Bruised [ ] |
| Hurt -1 [ ] |
| Injured -1 [ ] |
| Wounded -2 [ ] |
| Mauled -2 [ ] |
| Crippled -5 [ ] |
| Incapacitated [ ] |
+-------------------------+
We always say, "Martin has taken four levels of damage," rather than, "Martin is Wounded." Why? It's very, very easy to remember that everyone has seven health levels, and thus to know how badly injured you are. Even in D&D, in which a player character has anywhere from four hit points to well over a hundred hit points, every player can be reasonably expected to know how many hit points his character has. It's also easy to understand that doing twenty points of damage to an orc is probably a lot, and doing that to a great wyrm is not much at all.
The other reason we end up talking about health levels is that numbers are objective, but adjectives aren't. The usual demonstration of this is that nearly every player has, at some point, looked at his or her sheet and said, "Wait... being mauled isn't as bad as being crippled?" (I can't help but agree: I think I'd rather have a game leg than be run through by a pair of horns.)
In D&D, the damage section on a character sheet probably would look like this:
Total Hit Points: _____
Current Damage: _____
Actually, most have "current hit points," which is, I think, less straightforward. Either way, we're looking at two numbers, which will form a fraction. When it reaches 1 or 0, you are nearly dead.
Now, in True20, the damage section on a character sheet looks like this:
Damage Track
0 5+ 10+ 15+
Bruised Dazed Staggered Unconscious
[ ] [ ] [ ]
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Hurt Wounded Disabled Dying Dead
The rules are something like this: when you take non-lethal damage, the damage you take is determined by the amount by which you fail your Toughness check. If you fail only a little, you are Bruised. You can get bruised over and over, adding tally marks under "Bruised." (These are not point counters! We're not counting hit points, but Bruised Counts... or something.) Every "Bruised" tally means another -1 on further saves against non-lethal damage, meaning that sooner or later you will fail by five or more. At that point you start accumulating checks in those checkboxes. If you fail by 11, you are now Staggered. If you fail by 6 afterwards, you are Unconscious, because only a Bruised status can be stacked.
Dazed, Staggered, and Unconscious all have penalties that are not just extra stacked penalties. (To be fair, the penalty for Unconscious is pretty straightforward, but you still have to remember how Dazed and Staggered differ.)
Just like non-lethal damage, there's lethal damage. Lethal damage counting works exactly like non-lethal damage, but taking lethal damage also inflicts a level of non-lethal damage. Getting hurt will stacked bruises, but being disabled will cause staggering. Both penalties apply, and the penalties for Wounded and Disabled are different again from Dazed and Staggered.
The d20 system for damage is much easier, and could probably be adapted for use somehow. The only difficulty would be figuring out how many hit points of damage various attacks would cause, while using only a d20. My main gripe with d20's core damage system is that there are no effects until you are unconscious. If you are a tough thug with ten hit points and I beat you with a lead pipe until you are down to one hit point, you can still run, fight, and operate delicate machinery with the same ability as if you were at full health. The game designers have said that they think it would be depressing for heroes to be limping around constantly, but that seems like a false dichotomy. It would, instead, be very heroic for them to be able to stand at death's door and, with great and harried effort, still defy death.
The great thing about the Storyteller system's damage is that the effects are really, really simple: you get an increasing penalty to your die pools as you are more gravely injured. It affects everything (except, basically, your ability to resist more damage), and the penalty is written right there next to the checkbox. If you want a monster that can take more damage, you change its health levels -- you add a few extra -1's and let it make get down to -7 before it hits Incapacitated. There was originally no built-in system for non-lethal damage, but the usual bolt-on is easy: any health level can be marked off as lethal or non-lethal, with lethal counting as non-lethal but not vice versa. Getting "killed" by non-lethal damage knocks you out.
I think that if I do use True20 for the basics of the game, I will have to replace its damage system with something more like Storyteller's system. I'm not interested in remembering all the True20 adjectives, and my players will be even less interested.
Source : Planet Perl | 2007-08-01 02:25:08.0
PSP Fanboy review: Final Fantasy I
Filed under: Reviews, Final Fantasy
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After loading up the UMD, the first thing you'll be greeted with is the opening cinematic. This FMV of one of the Warriors of Light fighting against a dragon while, elsewhere, a crystal patiently waits is excellently made, as is always the case with Square-Enix CG. Short and to the point, this video gets you in the mood to start playing the game, though it also gives a stark contrast against which the 2D sprites appear slightly disappointing.
The in-game graphics are, in terms of 2D sprites, very pretty. The wonderfully clear PSP widescreen allows relatively high resolution and colour depth, which shows off the detail of the characters, enemies and backgrounds. All of which are improved substantially since the previous versions of the game, especially the incredibly detailed boss sprites. The backgrounds during battles have a particularly striking painting quality, allowing the bold-coloured character sprites to contrast heavily against them. Animations are a mixed bag, with walking and fighting having only two frames of movement. While this can be said to give the game a retro feel, the reality is that it can be quite jarring to see your nicley detailed character moving so jerkily. Having said that all spell effects have been improved substantially. The faux-3D feel that they have does a really good job of making this game applicable for a modern audience.
Final Fantasy games are renowned for their fantastic soundtracks and, while not as celebrated as FFVII or FFVIII, Final Fantasy I is no exception. Gone are the midis of old. They have been replaced with recorded versions of all the tunes and sound excellent through the PSP speakers, though they're even better through headphones. Tracks of note include Ahead On Our Way, a song reused in several other Final Fantasys (you may know it as the FFXII main theme) and the suitably epic World Map theme. The sound effects are adequate, though you will find yourself gritting your teeth at the sound of the "battle commence" noise for reasons I'll explain shortly.
No doubt in 1987 Final Fantasy had a deep and immersive story. Sadly, our standards have risen nowadays and we require far more in terms of narrative than this game has to offer. The story has not changed a bit since the original release. Most dialogue is either repetitive nonsense spouted by random townspeople, or requests for you to perform fetch quests. When you're not carrying an object from point A to point B, you're descending into dungeons to restore grace to the four elemental crystals jotted around the world. After this the story tries to get a bit clever, with a twist at the end which, if not confusing, will just seem a bit random. Despite all this you'll still find yourself encountering dwarves, elves, pirates and mermaids. A true fantasy tale.
Gameplay has remained largely the same, and we wouldn't have it any other way. While Square Enix have completely revamped Final Fantasy III in 3D on the DS and plan to do the same to Final Fantasy IV, the Anniversary Editions have remained grid based and 2D. Regardless, the game doesn't seem too dated in how it plays, particularly for a handheld title. Character classes haven't changed and you still have to pick your four party members at the outset from the choices of Fighter, Monk, Thief, Black Mage, White Mage and Red Mage. We stuck with the default party: a Fighter, Thief, Black Mage and White mage which we named Auron, Bartz, Vivi and Aeris, respectively. Sadly, the gameplay is so similar to the NES version that the random encounter rate has remained the same. Prepare to dig your nails into your PSP in fury during lengthy dungeons as the monsters simply don't. Stop. Coming. Random battle haters, steer clear.
The battle system is, again, very similar to anyone who has played the NES original, though the magic system has been given an overhaul since then. Where before you were given a set number of spells per level that you could cast between rests, now an MP system has been implemented. This makes spell casting much more similar to modern RPGs and is a welcome addition to the game. As is the ability to save anywhere, making the game much more attractive as a portable title.
The UMD the game comes on is awash with extras. While at the outset most won't be available to you, on completion of the game the Extras menu will open up on the main menu screen. This menu contains a bestiary of all the monsters you've fought during the game (gotta catch 'em all!), a music player so that you can listen back to any pieces that you particularly enjoyed and, our personal favourite, the art gallery. Yoshitaka Amano, the concept artist for many Final Fantasy games, including this one, has a very distinct and celebrated art style (see the image below). The art gallery gets updated, seemingly, as your bestiary does and includes a total of 76 available images to be viewed. As well as original Amano concept art, CG stills are unlockable within this feature, all of which can be zoomed and panned so that you can take in the complete detail. If you have any interest in Amano's work then the art gallery is reason enough to complete the game.
As well as the additional content in the Extras menu, the game contains the additional dungeons from the GBA version Dawn of Souls. These four dungeons are between 5 and 50 levels deep and house bosses from Final Fantasy II through VI. The more powerful equipment can only be obtained by completing them. A really nice thing about this is that when you are fighting a boss from another game, the music changes to the boss tune for that particular title. These are then unlocked in the music player in the extras menu. There is a final optional dungeon new to the PSP version called the Labyrinth of Time. Each floor has a time limit and a puzzle. The time limit can be elongated before you begin by trading abilities, such as being able to cast white magic or use items, for extra minutes. The only downside is that it is not possible to save once you've entered the dungeon, meaning you have to either complete it in one go, or give up and start from the beginning later.
Overall Final Fantasy I 20th Anniversary Edition is a must-get for any RPG fan who hasn't played the game in the past. Even if you have played it before, it's still worth picking up. Particularly if the last system you played it on was the NES. If you tried Final Fantasy I in the past and didn't like it then chances are this isn't version isn't going to convert you. It's too close to the original, in terms of gameplay. Despite some dated aspects, such as ridiculous monster encounter rates and grid based movement, the game holds its own remarkably well for a twenty year old title and the improvements and extras are definitely worth the price. Especially considering this is a game you can carry around with you wherever you go. The game is also massive. Expect to take 15 to 20 hours to finish it, or up to 30 hours if you complete all the sidequests. Quality, longevity, portability and nostalgia in one package. Could one ask for more?
PSP Fanboy Score: 8.0
Second Opinion: Andrew
Final Fantasy is not necessarily a bad game. The remade graphics are sharp, at times distressingly so. However, in spite of the incredible new music and vivid widescreen presentation, the game simply does not feel "new" enough to justify its admittedly high $30 asking price. Were it $10 cheaper, Final Fantasy would come easily more recommended. However, modern gamers ask for a far more complex and refined gameplay experience: with complex back stories, and involving battles and dungeons that require actual depth in thought. Some may call it "classic," when a more appropriate word would've been "antiquated."
6.5Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Source : PSP Fanboy | 2007-06-27 12:00:00.0
June 22, 2007 6:00 AM
GameBanshee has posted a new interview with Basilisk Games' Thomas Riegsecker about the company's upcoming RPG, Eschalon: Book 1. The first in a planned trilogy, the game will feature turn-based combat, a large world to explore, and a variety of quests. Among other things the article covers Eschalon's quest system, character generation options, and magic system.
GB: Take us through the game's character creation system. How much customization will players have at their disposal while creating their character? Also, what effect will the player's Origin and Axiom choices have during the course of their adventure?
Thomas: We tried to make the character creator as close to a pen-and-paper experience as possible. We want the player to feel as if they are crafting a brand new character rather than having to select from a prefabricated stereotype. To that end you have full control over skill selection, point distribution, character attributes and more.
Your character’s Origin is simply a personal trait identifying his homeland, which grants him certain attribute bonuses similar to a racial selection in other RPGs. The Axiom stat is very similar to the Alignment stat from D&D, though we tried to make it more practical and less restrictive. Basically, it grants one beneficial trait and one negative trait based on your character’s personal belief system. For example, if you select the Atheistic Axiom, then your character chooses to not believe in superstitions or divinity of any kind, and so he is immune to curses. However, this also makes him immune to the beneficial effects of blessings or healing via a pr
To read the rest of the interview, which also includes a new screenshot from the game, head over to the site listed below.
GameBanshee: Eschalon Book 1 Interview
Basilisk Games
Eschalon: Book 1
Source : insidemacgames.com | 2007-06-22 17:58:48.0
Magic System : Video Clips
Magic System - 1er gaou - version originale
Magic System - Un gaou a paris
Magic System : videos
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Video : Premier gaou Label : Next Music Year : 2001 |
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