Has anyone tried the new YYF Halo? If so, what are your thoughts on it? It is priced as a budget-friendly monometal aimed at beginners just getting into unresponsive play, but I’m curious what advanced players think of it.
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I think it’s pretty bad practice that the yoyo was conceieved as a signature for Yoyojoe (the youtuber yoyojoe1, not our forum resident Yoyojoe), and was seemingly rushed into production from the prototyping stages without having Yoyojoe’s feedback and preferences used to tweak the proto. Then when Yoyojoe got frustrated over lack of control/communication with the project, Angelo’s name was slapped on it, even though Angelo had nothing to do with the design.
I’m sure it’s a fine yoyo, especially if you like the previous Avant Garde line, but the history behind the yoyo completely kills any interest I’d ever have in buying one.
I get that they had to market it somehow, so slapping Angelo’s name on it in a way makes sense. But the project being botched so hard on YYF’s end, to rush a potentially worse product to market instead of continuing to proto/refine or just communicate with the player it’s supposed to be a sig for leaves a very sour taste in my mouth.
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where did that info come from?
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Yoyojoe1, and considering he severed his ties with Yoyofactory over this, I’m inclined to believe his story. https://youtu.be/jaemQHQgPLE?t=643
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thank you!
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I felt the same, before reading Ben’s clarification on r/throwers discord where he showed his conservation with joe. And I guess I’ll stay neutral for this one.
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Any chance you can dig that up? Just searched r/throwers and couldn’t find it
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Same. Do share please, interested in hearing YYF’s side of the story.
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Rushed?
Lol.
If you think anything was rushed on this yo-yo that was prototyped, tested for many months it kinda shows your lack of objectivity here.
Thanks for the glowing praise. The Avant Garde was released under a cloud of controversy as its similarities to the unreleased Auldey L4 were pretty clear to see. Ironically the full circle on this was completed with the Kui, designed in collaboration with L4 designer Lou Yichen. More recently the shape appeared in the beloved Element design.
I really like how the final branding and story came out….yes, It wasn’t how it was originally intended but the ring forming the halo is I think pretty sweet branding.
As well publicized, it was intended to be a different players signature design. I was under the impression that we had green light to produce and were given production colors. It was equally confusing to me to have messages not get responded. We had one of the most lucrative new player deals in place, distribution at a premier retailer and I couldn’t get an address to send the final version of the yo-yo. I was spooked.
We should have tapped out at this stage but we dragged feet and created a very vocal displeased individual. This was our mistake right here. In the end he ended the relationship and specifically requested we NOT talk about their involvement with the yo-yo. So we never mentioned it and moved on.
So we had a run of a pretty sweet yo-yo…. Just chilling. Full batch. We talked about it with said premier retailer and offered the same lucrative deal to Angelo. Angelo has been killing it doing his own thing and we saw a great fit specifically for him. We are associated with many players but saw a natural fit. We sent Angelo yo-yos, talked about the branding and how this yo-yo fit into his quiver. As a player known for blistering speed but also demonstrating amazing flow this yo-yo delivered.
In the end we created a banging yo-yo and a vehicle a player could use to promote yo-yo and put money in their pocket to keep them making A- level content, so we achieved our primary objective, eventually.
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@SR1 and @bheinz63, here’s the information you’re looking for. I didn’t redact any part of the conversation, the pictures are cropped for better readability.
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Wow, you really came with the receipts. Thanks for posting these, it clears things up quite a bit for me and pretty much changed my opinion on it. I think it could’ve been handled better by both parties tbh, Ben may have jumped the gun a little with just doing a full production run believing that he had the green light, but YoYoJoe definitely got kinda weird and unresponsive towards the end and FOR SURE shouldn’t have made that video. Doesn’t affect me as I’m not the target customer for a Halo, but I guess it feels better to know both sides now.
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You’re welcome! After reading the conversation I also completely changed my stance on the issue. That video by YoYoJoe was definitely misrepresenting YoYoFactory.
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That is definitely a rough situation. Thank you for sharing this information because I had a lot of questions about the Halo Situation.
Since we are getting a more accurate picture of the situation I thought this should be on the thread.
It seems like there was confusion on what was expected with the production model.
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No problem! Thanks for sharing the clarification by YoYoJoe. It seems like communication broke down somewhere along the way between YoYoFactory and YoYoJoe and all this just seems to be the result of miscommunication and misunderstanding.
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Curious why he wasn’t keen to at least receive it and try it out. Shame that, according to YoYoJoe’s comments under the YouTube video, Angelo doesn’t want to promote it any more, despite agreeing to put his name to it. Sounds like the well has been poisoned, which is a shame, since it looks like a sweet and unique yoyo, especially at that price point!
I didn’t realize this poor yoyo was so burdened with controversy. I was hoping to get some insights into how it feels to play, but I guess nobody wants to buy one and try it out due to its troubled history.
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I bought one as the “mystery monometal” during the b-grade sale last year, before I even knew the name of it. I just pulled it out and threw it around a bit, here are some off-the-cuff impressions:
It’s a decent monometal. Reasonable stability, speed, power, spin time, and consistent binds.
It’s a decently wide throw, between a Banshee SS and an Exia in width. I’m still just starting to get into 5a, so take this with a grain of salt, but it might make a good 5a throw.
For the price ($35) I think it’s a good monometal throw. I can’t say anything particularly bad about it.
For me personally, I typically lean toward undersized, narrower throws, and the undercut, while cool, doesn’t thrill me. But I think I will try it out for 5a.
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Is it weird that the controversy makes me want to buy one?
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I kinda feel that the $30-40 price tier is already full of good yoyos, and they all pretty much fill the same role in much the same way. What does the Halo offer that the countless others in its category don’t?
I suppose that is the problem all new yoyos in this price range have to deal with in the marketplace. How do you distinguish yourself from all the others? Perhaps being associated with a popular player was supposed to be its USP, but if Angelo is choosing not to promote it anymore, it doesn’t sound like it has that going for it either.
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I’m of the same opinion. With the prevalence of good, reasonably-priced yoyos in plastic, mono-, and bimetal, I think across the board it’s getting harder and harder for any particular yoyo to differentiate itself from the crowd.
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