Cast Rotor

5 

Superb puzzle. No matter how long you take to solve it, there is one critical maneuver that must be accomplished to be successful. Even with that one step understood, it still is a challenge getting the pieces into place to even make that one move. There seems to be multiple ways to set up the critical move, but it must be done if you hope to disassemble (and reassemble) the puzzle properly. Note that the pieces are identical except in color. The gold piece is the reference, and the silver piece is the maneuvered one, but the solution works if either is the reference. I disagree that any force is necessary to solve this one, only finesse and patience. Great puzzle, one of my top favorites.

3 

Final move required some force. Otherwise there are better Hanayama puzzles, however this one is OK. Not one of my favorites. Hourglass is worthy of five stars, as are cast chain, Enigma, etc.

5 

I really like this puzzle. It's everything a puzzle should be. It looks good, feels good, is fun to play with, and is very difficult to solve with a very nice final aha! moment. The first time I tried it, I took it apart and put it back together in two hours. Its difficulty seemed a little overrated. But I didn't understand how it came apart nor how it went back. So I tried it again. I figured out all the moves, the sets of moves that let you rotate one piece around the other and the special moves that used the slot in one of the spokes of each piece, and I knew the final configuration needed in order to separate the pieces. But now that I "understood" the puzzle, I was spending hour after hour after hour without solving it. Hmmn, this puzzle is harder than I first thought. On my first attempt, it was just a matter of luck that I was able to get it apart. I got so disturbed by my lack of progress after numerous hours that I started writing down positions and how you could move between them in order to get a handle on what was going on. Doing this, I made a discovery -- the puzzle had no solution! Obviously, I was missing something; there had to be a solution since I had already taken it apart. But what was I missing? There is one unexpected, cleverly hidden aha! that opens the door to solving the puzzle. Very nicely designed Mr. Kyoo Wong; you really had me going for quite a while. I highly recommend this one to anybody who likes difficult challenging puzzles.

5 

Haven't solved it yet, nonetheless a well designed puzzle, worthy of a level six. Will not disappoint even the most avid of solvers.