Square Wheels Royale Yoyo Review

Hi there everybody.

I've been lucky enough to play the Royale from the Square Wheels Yoyo Company.

I really enjoyed this first offering from this new company. It plays nice and smooth and is just a nice all around package.

Here are the specs:


Diameter: 54mm
Width: 43mm
Gap at bearing: 4.4mm
Weight: 66 Grams
Bearing: Terrapin X
Response: Monkey SnotThe Royale is available at the Square Wheels Website - $90 for solid colors and $110 for more complex designs.

Here's my review...

I also recommend checking out the unboxing to see the very nice little package of stuff this yoyo includes.

• The Royale is a nice little package. It comes in a regular postal shipping box, but rather than put a box inside that, Square Wheels has made custom cut foam to cradle the two haves with accessories in a nice soft quality bag. The presentation is truly beautiful, the black gloss coated foam cradling each red half is striking.

In the small bag an axle, a terrapin bearing, and two different Twisted string types are included. I mentioned in the unboxing and I'll mention it here. I love when companies don't rest at the point of Yoyo design and production and allow their creativity to continue into the design, and shipping of the Yoyo.

• The Royale itself is a dream to throw. Its soda blast is perfectly smooth and grindable and it feels nice on a catch. The shape of the generous catch zone is also nicely suited for righting itself in an off throw and in blind catches.

• The ano job is extremely unique. I'd call it a sort of blister style, its color edges have the line quality of a spinning scrape. The color itself, this unit's at least is a dark burgundy with a gold undertone and dark charcoal graphics.

• The square wheels guys do all their own machining and anodizing in-house and they have extremely high standards. I remember seeing a prototype several months ago and was interested enough with the simple proto photo that I contacted them to ask about their process.

• This Yoyo they made, it's so obviously made to very exact tolerances in but structure an appearances. The anodization like I discussed, but also tiny bits of engineering in structure like a small lip on the edge to allow a minimal of material to be in contact with the hand in a palm grind.

• I'll also mention, though I generally don't, I want to mention the sound given off during play. It's a very clear ring, a pleasant mid-low pitch tone.

• This Yoyo has no vibe. It comes with the axle out and instructions on tuning the axle to be sure you keep its exacting balance when installing. I had assumed I would need to do a couple of tuning tests before finding the perfect balance, but I found the Royale to tune perfectly when the axle is seated fully. Your findings may vary, so if you have any vibe, go ahead and gently screw the axle in to be sure it's fully seated. Don't force it though, last thing you want is to damage the seat.

• The Royale's cup is very generous and although it has no lip hanging over the rim, I've found the shape of the cup to be such that hitting and holding a rim grind is easy at a slight angle. The cup also terminates at the center with a nice pointy spike, easy to grip and hold without having cup material-skin contact slowing it down.

The Royale's Huge and Polished String Zone

• The Royale's got a really generous and well polished string zone. I've found the spin times to be quite long. It's hit the elements for long form, multi-wrap play; Terrapin coated bearing, solid rim weight, and the polished large string zone.

• If there were one shortcoming (and of course you know I'll always tell you if I find something lacking) in the Royale it would be the response. However, that said I'm very happy to be able to say while the review units shipped with RTV, the Royale will ship to customers with a custom Monkeyfinger Snot.

I was very happy to hear this because the Royale is such an incredibly strong first offering from this new company, I didn't want to find anything lacking. I've just set my review unit up with flowable after removing the original RTV.

Snot is one of my four favorite responses, and it's such a cool first in terms of customer serviceable, custom color response materials. I'm really happy it's being adopted as a standard.

• I mentioned earlier the Royale comes with a pair of Twisted custom strings. It comes with both type A and B. I really like the trend that seems to be taking place where different small manufacturers are sourcing parts of their yoyos from other small manufacturers; such as Snot being used in this Yoyo and custom string being made for this run.

There's plenty to like about the strings that come with the Royale. For one thing they look really cool. Twisted has some really unique color tones in the lines, Jen tends to make every type of string in both bright colors, and also muted tones. The strings that come with the Royale are both muted tones which really fit with the ano.

The type A, which is what I've decided works best for me in this throw, come in a beautiful combination of cerulean blue and charcoal gray shifts. The type A is stiffer than the B and takes longer to break in, but once it does it really plays with intent.

The type B that comes in the package as well is a dark olive green and khaki with some brown in the mix. The type B is softer than the A and plays very differently. I liked the Royale so much with both these strings I asked Jen to make me a set of both so I can keep playing the Royale with stock colors and types.

• In closing I want to reference something Chris Rhodes said in his review, which I completely agree with, which is this is a Yoyo for chilling out and throwing. It's an extremely comfortable Yoyo. It moves very smoothly, is floaty (with pretty equal weight distribution), it also has a really generous and smoothly polished string zone which not only accommodates quite a few string wraps but also let's you relax and throw without it binding up unintentionally.

Its soft soda blast also gives it a nice slippy feel on the skin, and the wide catch zone not only allows landing without too much thought, but it also is a perfect amount of space for hitting grinds. This is a Yoyo to be played without requiring much attention, it's a very relaxed throw.

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