Welcome to yoyoing! Prepare yourself for a very long and rewarding journey.
My experience with the Yoyofactory Arrow line has been limited to only the Metal Arrow. The Metal Arrow plays and feels so good that I have been curious about the rest of the Arrow line for some time.
Like the rest of the Arrow line-up, the Metal Arrow is a bit slimmer than most modern butterfly style yoyos and has a very nice fingerspin dimple (although it sometimes feels a bit too small for my finger, it still works well). Unlike the rest of the Arrow line, it has an H-shape that was adopted from the Yoyofactory G5 and comes with a large Center Trac bearing installed. The Metal Arrow easily slips into a pocket, has great stability, long spin times, and feels really fun to play around with. I highly recommend it (it’s also on sale right now too!).
Have you been playing with the equipped thin bearing or have you tried out the included larger bearing with your Arrow Elite?
Also, hold on to that delrin Gamer. While you may not enjoy it now, you might change your mind about it as you gain experience with new tricks and playstyles.
When Yoyofactory released the original Arrow a few years ago, it was really light and only came with a narrow bearing. They then released the Arrow Elite with added side caps that would concave towards the center fingerspin dimple making fingerspins easier and adding some extra weight. It also came with a large flat bearing for you to swap out if you wanted to try unresponsive play.
I could be wrong though since this has been a while ago and I can’t seem to find much info on the original Arrow anymore.
The delrin Gamer can be tuned to a persons liking. The gap is narrower than the regular Gamer. A few people posted about the tuning. Jeremery / @MrYoyoThrower at Rain City Skills may be able to help you get it fixed up so you like it more.
The gamer feels brilliant to hold, the delrin is beautiful, and all the extras that came with it were really cool. It just feels a bit light. I can see how it would be a perfect looper but I’m not into that (yet).
I’ll try and get my hands on the rest of the lineup and give a basic (because I’m a noob) review of my impressions.
Glad to hear no one has jumped in and said they play like rocks…
I think I’d like the Arrow line more if it didn’t use the glow-in-the-dark plastic for the Pro and Metal versions. In fact, I’d really like it if the Metal Arrow was just metal. The plastic caps don’t add any value to that yoyo, IMO.
I think the plastic side caps are pretty nice for their application. They help guide fingers towards the center fingerspin hub on less than perfect throws. They also help fill in the cavity with a gentle gradient that doesn’t change the weight distribution significantly. Without sharp cutoffs, the yoyo feels more comfortable in the pocket, especially in dress slacks where I can feel every sharp corner of a yoyo.
Aesthetically, they do look a little cartoonish and overstylized. Personally I would prefer something a bit cleaner and less busy than a bunch of large arrows all over the side caps. The glow plastic color is not the nicest to look at either.
Overall, they work similarly to delrin caps on the Czechpoint Pivot. For me, they provide appreciable function while looking okay.
Would consider the delrin gamer as a more advanced responsive through, great for modern responsive tricks.
The Arrow series are great and Cheap comparing to other YYF yoyos, they are generally lighter and slimmer and less wide than the average modern yoyos. I would say is you are going with the Arrow series, go for the Metal Arrow, it is most long spinning and stable out of the all and the light and nimble feel combined with a pocket size makes throwing enjoyable.
On the other hand, the Arrow series won’t bring you too far, they are certainly fun if you are a more advanced thrower but the spin isn’t long enough for practicing tricks and they tilt too much during the play. This means when you are practicing tricks like hops and redirects (one of the example being the brother Eli hop) your yoyo might tilt.
If you are going into modern unresponsive tricks, I recommend picking up a EZspin on Amazon, or if you are willing to use Aliexpress, get the Gravitation III or the 7075 rattlesnake. they are much more powerful and stable + they are not slow throws.
If you have any further questions, feel welcome to ask me them.