yoyorecreation - SAVAGE
| Specifications: | |
|---|---|
| Diameter (mm) | 56.0 |
| Width (mm) | 50.0 |
| Weight (g) | 68.0 |
| Bearing Size | C |
| Response System | 19mm |
Introduction
Ayumu Kasuga was not a player I was familiar with until recently, but two years in a row of 100 gecs at Japan Nationals was enough to make me a fan. I think it’s reasonable to say that nobody’s currently doing it like him when it comes to body tricks, and his signature yoyo, the yoyorecreation Savage, was made to accommodate his demanding style of play. This is a yoyo that has a lot of intrigue surrounding it, and despite it being released in 2023 there hasn’t been a whole lot in the way of reviews on it. So how does it stack up?
Specs and Pre-Throw Characteristics
The Savage is a trimaterial yoyo made of 7075 aluminum, stainless steel and polycarbonate. The stainless steel rims wrap around the entire lip of the body, and a small part of them are visible in the cup between the plastic and aluminum. This means, if I understand it correctly, that the plastic is pressed/fit into the inside of the steel ring, rather than the other way around. Without giving it too much thought, this seems like a great idea to me - this setup means if you hit the yoyo on the ground, the plastic absorbs both the contact with the ground as well as the force of the impact while affecting the alignment of the steel rims as little as possible. So far my theory has been supported, as I’ve hit this yoyo on the floor a couple of times and it’s remained dead smooth.
The Savage sports an ever-so-slightly rounded wing profile, which bears some resemblance to the yoyorecreation 6ix, one of my personal favorites. This yoyo is extremely comfortable in hand as well as on the catch. At 50mm wide, the Savage (apart from its counterpart, the Savage55) is the widest offering from YYR to date; while wide, it doesn’t necessarily fall outside the new norm of competitive design.
The YYR store exclusive colorways feature an awesome engraving in the cup, and while fingerspins suffer due to its presence I find that the hub design of modern YYRs don’t lend themselves particularly well to these tricks to begin with. While I think the engravings they do on the rims look good, their standard hub design is pretty visually bland so having something different in the cup is a welcome addition.
from left to right - YYR Sigtyr, YYR Savage, YYR 6ix
Play
This is where my opinion might be a little controversial compared to other reviews on the Savage I’ve read. My initial expectation for this yoyo was an uber-rim weighted, heavy throw that rips its way through tricks with brute force at the cost of control - something like a wider, lighter Collapsar. Drawing from my previous experience with yoyorecreation: 63-65g outer ring bimetal = dense feeling and stable, so 68g outer ring bimetal = denser and more stable, right?
When it comes to speed, weight distribution is infinitely more important than the number of grams. I’ll call out the YoYoJam Phenom (69g) as a historical example of this. For a heavier yoyo to truly feel both “fast” and “zippy”, there has to be some degree of center weight. I’d describe the Savage as a modern version of this archetype. Because of this, in the past “speed” yoyos often came with a degree of instability due to this design philosophy. While this may sound like a bad thing, YYR has balanced the weight distribution in a way that results in play that is both speedy and stable. Is this the most stable yoyo in their lineup? No. But I am not calling the Savage unstable or lacking in any department when it comes to performance. Instead, I think it feels like a welcome departure from today’s common formula for competition yoyos of “as light and as rimweighted as possible”.
I personally don’t find the Savage to be fatiguing to play with. At the risk of sounding like a boomer - 68 grams is not that heavy, and the weight is distributed over a large body. This yoyo accelerates extremely easily, and never feels like a rock on a string. While it definitely isn’t light/floaty, it doesn’t feel dense in the way that, for example, the Sigtyr does. The best play comparison for the Savage that I can think of is that it feels like if YYR designed a sOMEThING yoyo. In my opinion, it plays like a larger, more stable Slasher or an Anglam designed for today’s meta (note that I have not played either of their wider models, the Yuiga or Phenom, so I am unsure how they compare).
Closing Thoughts
I think this thing is awesome. Despite being marketed as the wide yoyo of yoyorecreation’s lineup, the Savage’s width does not feel unnatural. It definitely lends itself to the fast and aggressive play of its signature player, but in my opinion is pleasant enough for anyone to enjoy.
4.5/5