Ok, if their player wins anything real contest using the Balls, I will formally apologize to Yoyofactory.
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Thanks guys just ordered me a set of gold balls. Looking forward to playing with them
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I mean, is it a good yo-yo? Novelty factor aside, how does it actually play?
Should people actually care which yoyo was used to win any competition?
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I can think of a few. The Miracle 25 is equal in level of performance of anything I have. The Starlight is one of the most fun performance yo-yos I’ve ever played and is so close to the best it’s a mute point. And I’ll say the Pneuma is amazing and easily equal to say the Liminal Autoscopy. And the level of fit finish is actually better than some I’ve received from Yoyorec. All of these have fit and finish equal to anything from Japan. Also, I got my Pneuma and Starlight and was playing them for weeks before they released in Japan.
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Ya I’m with you. I was t impressed with them over the last few years and I’m surprised they haven’t undergone a course correction and restructuring?…
It is annoying to see that they have really latched on to riding out the instagram/tick to k trends by doubling down on DNA specific products. They seemed to have lost sight of their original fan base.
I’ll also agree that yes, the quality of their products doesn’t match up with the price point. Plus they don’t retain value. Where as lots of other yo-yos do continue to hold pretty close value to retail or even increase in value if there’ is a scarcity or desire for a specific model. I can’t really see any YYF yo-yos having an increased value other than some of the original 888’s.
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There are definitely some others like USA made Genesi, Severes and 7075 Supernovas that are worth quite a bit nowadays or at least retail. They had really awesome special editions back then and they are still very sought after.
Personally I think the Jon Rob Supernova is one of the best looking yoyos of all time but I have never seen one for sale.
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tbh the Balls has a better fit/finish than the Liminal Autoscopy I just received and bought direct from Yoyorec. It was my first YYR throw, bought specifically to support Hajime Miura who I met at 2024 worlds and gave him a hug after his performance. It literally still has the machine finish, no polishing or blasting, just straight off the machine. I genuinely dont know how they get away with selling that yoyo for $180 with zero finish applied. It plays amazing, but looks and feels terrible. Balls has a really nice blasted finish, a nice blue/green/black acid wash, and its glass smooth.
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YYF still has the ability to do cool stuff (Miracle is amazing, ano and beadblast on the worlds edition balls are good), but their overall creative direction has kinda gone to the gutter imo.
They’ve always gotten a lot of hate for the reason of them being a large and “corporate” brand, but I feel like in the past they lived up to that mantle in a good way through professional branding, great competition team, doing “large corporate sponsor stuff” like filming worlds freestyles in a high quality and consistent format, and having both solid cheap beginner stuff and legitimately good and interesting premium models.
Nowadays they’ve kind of fallen behind in that regard, their designs are largely boring, their branding exclusively feels cheap and they’ve been on the wrong end of more than one controversy. As a former big fan it’s sad to see.
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Hey….look. A Novetly yo-yo….
Novelty theory melts like ice cream in the Sun, lol.
Every Yoyofactory release doesn’t have to make people Shutter.
And not every design has to own the Spotlight.
Over the last 20 years, Yoyofactory has proven time and time again, that they have the I.Q. to create Miracles.
They specialize in making Tools for Competitors and Toys for enthusiasts.
Simply watching Doc Pops Ball video, is pretty compelling evidence that although the Balls were never intended to be Competition tools, that the yo-yo certainly has playing potential well beyond a ‘novelty’ status. There seems to be, in general, a very inconsistent understanding of what a ‘novelty item is’?
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I tried it at worlds. It’s an…ok yoyo. It plays wide and slow and ponderous. It’s not heavy in play but it is also kind of sluggish. Spin times on it are decent for a monometal.
It’s not a BAD yoyo per se. Just a mediocre novelty one.
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I’m always up for trash talking YYF but I must say I think this is a strange thing to get hung up on from them. Loads of brands do silly one off novelties (if ZGRT did this I’m sure a lot of the same people would be saying how unique and fun it is for example), I don’t think there’s an inherent issue with YYF doing the same and they’ve done novelty designs for as long as they’ve been a company pretty much.
I believe this yo-yo is also part of a charity effort from YYF for testicular cancer, so doubly a strange thing to get hung up on imo. Plenty of much more justifiable reasons to be upset with YYF.
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My original point was not to trash Yoyofactory. Clearly they are a great company. What I was trying to highlight is that this great company seems to be focusing on the low-end of the market and producing yo-yo’s that are novelties that I would expect to see on a toy store shelf while their high-end models seem to come and go. Many never even make it to the US which does not say much for their acceptance by the marketplace.
If they have the time and energy to make these ‘Balls” yo-yo’s then they should have the time to create new, innovative high-end and middle-market throws. Those seem to be missing these days.
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It seems they’re very clearly a more mass-market focused company
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Great, another mono-metal disguised to look like a bi-metal… This is one thing I HATE manufacturers doing. It is borderline false-advertising IMO.
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You can get it without Bi-Metal Styling
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Haha, Bi-Metal styling. Sort of like putting a Ferrari badge on a Kia? Yeah, it is Ferrari-styling.
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Yknow, i dont love yyf, but to say they are targeting the beginner/low end demo is kinda misleading. Sure, they focus a mass market appeal, so they have less room for bleeding edge tech, but they were still (one of?) the first to do plastic capped bimetal with the original miracle (which is a great yoyo) and make a decent amount of competition throws.
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