This will be a long entry, please strap in.
If you haven't already, please view my design notes for the two versions of Asora. It explains my process, reasonings, and mindset for the design.
In this entry, I'm going to review Asora in depth from my perspective and explain the changes that will be done to the next version.
So far, I've been throwing Asora daily for a year - both the SE and Tapped Axle versions. I haven't really said anything about the yo-yo at all. I didn't want to put my own perception out there and have your own perception ruined by my words. I've not claimed how it plays, if it's good, or anything like that. I literally just released it and felt like people would understand without me having to say what it is or how it plays. I stated my goals and the yo-yo's that inspired the design so that probably helped people to understand what it was going to play like.
I'll put my review here, below the review will be more of the conceptual blab that you can read if you want.
Asora is targeted toward specific people, the Freehand 1 enthusiasts, the Anti-Yo YWET lovers, and anyone seeking something with a lil bit of zip in a classic organic shape. It truly just is a revitalization or resurrection of a YWET/FreeRider/MetalZero. As such, the performance was never the main goal of the design and I would assume most people who buy Asora realize that from the first look. It's technically a high wall organic.
This is an unstructured review.
Performance - I think that Asora's performance can be bumped just a bit. It plays good enough for what I envisioned but I believe that I can give it a little more rim weight and power while maintaining the feel.
Stability - Stability on Asora is lacking a bit, this was due to my own design flaw. I'm still a new designer, so there's a lot for me to learn. The issue was that where I put the weight on the rim was off by enough to make it not have quite enough stability for what I wanted.
Spin Time - Asora has plenty of spin time if you are clean. I almost feel like the spin time is more than that of a lot of designs. This is because of 7068 imo. The issue here is balancing the play feel of an old school high wall. Changing the response design would help the spin time and stability, but it could take away from the punishment you're getting from string contact - which could be a positive or a negative based on how you look at things.
Look - I like the look of Asora but I'm planning to change the hub a bit on the next version to help differentiate it from the 1st and 2nd.
Hand Feel - Perfect, it has enough soft edges so that it feels really nice in your hand. The diameter is nice and big helping spin time. In the next version I plan to reduce the diameter by a little bit because I think that Asora was a little too big. I think a little smaller of diameter will help it feel a little more tight in play.
Play Feel - This is where Asora shines for me. I think that it has a near perfect play feel and don't want to tamper with that much. I know I can improve things but within yo-yo design there is always a give and take.
Response - The biggest issue to tackle was the fabled 21 vs 19mm response debate. From my observations, 21mm is better, so that will be my response size moving forward.
Overall score - 8.4/10 this rating isn't based off of performance, its based off of my goal and what I feel I achieved with this design. Some people might pick this design up and go "this sucks." That's fine, it wasn't designed for everyone in mind. Quite literally what people are calling a "boomer yo-yo." That's exactly what I wanted to design.
The reason for the score is because I think that the diameter being higher, the weight being lower, and the lack of rim weight in a specific area held back Asora from being closer to a 9~
I felt that, for my goal and what I envisioned it to play like was just ever so slightly off.
I wanted a bit more stability from the design and I also feel like it may have been ever so slightly too punishing for some modern tricks. I don't want this yo-yo to hold you back. I think a playful conversation is important, but at the same time finding the balance so Asora isn't arguing with you over what tricks it can or can't do, or what tricks it's holding you back from. Sometimes, you just need to clean it up, or practice, but sometimes... certain throws just can't hit certain tricks. This balance is a very fine line to me. If I improve Asora's stability and power through weight distribution, and also improve it's response/wall area to be less punishing, that could reduce the amount of conversations I get to have in play with Asora. That to me is where I run the chances of killing the "soul" of Asora.
After a year of playing it I can say that it's taken over both the Free Rider and YWET spot in my throwing rotation, almost becoming the sole yo-yo I'm playing at the moment. I wanted to give myself a full year of throwing to make sure that I wasn't just in a honeymoon phase and that I was allowing myself the option to throw other designs. While I still have other more performant designs I play, this has definitely taken over my FH1/Free Rider/YWET/MetalZero spot in my lineup. I just think Asora is better all around from every standpoint. With that, my goal was achieved and I've designed a near perfect yo-yo for what I wanted to create.
I feel that, describing a yo-yo is extremely personal to the person playing the yo-yo based on their own preferences. These preferences are built up over years of collecting and trying yo-yo's. Sometimes, for a lot of us who aren't competitive "new" yo-yo's doesn't necessarily mean "better" then whatever our current favorite is based on our preferences.
Your favorite is dependent on what your own playstyle is, who your favorite players are, your favorite brand, your favorite shape, your favorite weight, what era or year you started throwing, and so much more. What could be a favorite for someone could be another person's least favorite. It's all up to your own preference. You could enjoy something around 76G like a Collapsar, with tons of power, or you could be someone that enjoys a slimline Panorama that clocks in around 60g. I personally recognize this and understand that everyone has their own thing. It's why I didn't want to muddy your own definition of your words within how a yo-yo plays with my words. I didn't want to say "This yo-yo is good, its floaty, its fun, its zippy" these words really have no set "definition" in yo-yo.
I knew what my own personal preferences were and what I felt like defined a good yo-yo. I applied those concepts to Asora and thought I hit a home run. Though, like stated above, everyone's preferences are their own. Defining or designing a yo-yo that everyone equally loves is a tough cookie to crack. The other issue behind this is the amount of yo-yo's released in the modern era and the selection to choose from. Out of everything out there available and the thousands of choices you could choose for the yoyo you're throwing right now, how did the one you chose make it's way to your hand? What features defined it to make you have the desire or need to throw it over your other selection of throws. By today's standards, everything is "good enough" for most of us, if anything a MYY Node will outplay most of us. So if technically, a $25 node and $120 Asora can both land the same tricks, if anything the Node is better on performance standards. Why would someone choose Asora over a Node? Why would they choose Asora over a Bi-Metal? Why would they choose Asora over the 100's of throws in their collection? Knowing people have played it for months now, and that people continue to enjoy it helped answer my questions about whether or not my own personal preferences were my own or if there was some sort of magic in certain design concepts that most people genuinely enjoy out of a yo-yo.
This is the definition of Asora to me. It's an undefinable trait that most of us can't place into words other than quite simply "I like it." To someone, their definition of "floaty" or "fun" could be drastically different than another person's "floaty" or "fun" definition. A lot of it can't be expressed in words. For me, yo-yo's aren't "just a toy" and they aren't just another thing you buy and never use again. They're your best friend.
You take your yo-yo everywhere, on the train ride, on the walk home from school, at lunch on breaks, after or before work, while you're hanging out with people, on vacations, to the doctors, to the bar, wherever you go, the yo-yo is there with you. It's your best bud, your homie, your ride or die, and it's never going to leave you unless you leave it - it'll always, always be there for you and jam just as hard as it did when you first got it - you might have changed, but the yo-yo hasn't.
For me, I think that we as throwers have our own personalities within yo-yo and our style of throwing, and we're always evolving even if you throw the same tricks every day, your execution changes, you change, your collection changes. We define that personality by learning tricks, executing them, and what becomes our staple trick set within throwing on a daily basis. So for you as a person seeking a new yo-yo to play, you're likely looking for whatever appeals to your own personality and style in throwing. If you do zontal tricks, you probably aren't looking to buy Asora - that's fine, because it wasn't designed for that goal in mind. So Asora lacks certain personality traits, but has others that I would say help make it a perfect candidate for a top 5 sort of list. I'm sure this is a bold statement, and I dare not say words I don't believe in, but I truly feel this way after a year of throwing it. The next version will be that top 5 yo-yo if Asora isn't already that for some of you.
I am extremely honored to see Asora next to these sort of designs that I hold in high regard.
Asora was never meant to be high performance, modern competitive, or "good" in the sense of performance. I just wanted to give enough modernization from the 07 era throws to a modern design to help retain that "feel" of those yo-yo's from the past. As stated above, "new" doesn't always mean "better." So Asora will in fact punish you if you don't throw clean, I designed it to be that way. Though, the amount of punishment is far less than that of something from 2007. It inherently has better weight distribution within a similar old school shape. For me, that was the key to this design. I felt like touching walls helps give you more conversations with the yo-yo; giving it more personality. Asora will tell you when you're off course, it'll tell you when you need to clean up an element, and it'll tell you when something is just too much angle for it. Though, I also felt in the same regard that certain organic designs I did play didn't have quite enough performance that I wanted. I felt like, a high wall should be able to have a lot of spin time and performance. The two balancing eachother out would in theory, make for a really fun yoyo.
The issue for me is the amount of punishment Asora dishes out. How much punishment is too much within a modern setting? How many modern tricks can Asora handle without causing frustration or holding you back from hitting the trick. These were the things I had to physically test and allow other people to test. This is why they're called "Test-Types" it's because the whole reason Asora Test Types exist is because I understood my preferences are my own and I needed to know if they matched other people's preferences too.
There's not many of them out there, and it's because they're essentially the same yo-yo. I also didn't want to flood the yo-yo market, that already feels very flooded. The price of Asora was higher, and likely will always be higher than other monometals from the sheer fact that I'm buying in smaller quantities and using 7068 from FPM to manufacture this design. Changing it to 6061 and moving to another company to reduce costs would 100% ruin the design as intended and is not something I am personally willing to do.
Having two test-types allowed for me to play two similar designs back to back with reason and understanding. It allowed me to really learn about yoyo design and what I needed to do to perfect Asora. I am confident the next version will be the final and perfect version of Asora that will be ready to be released as our official first design.
Thank you to everyone who picked up an Asora. I'm so happy they made their ways to good homes and hope that everyone is continuing to enjoy them. Thank you for all of the kind words and compliments, I was floored by the response I received about the design.
