As you all know, IGN’s official Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order review score is the opinion of an individual reviewer who has played to completion, and not a consensus among the entire staff. That’s been standard practice among virtually all review outlets for decades, largely because of the challenging logistics of having so many people play so much of a game in such a short period of time. But what if, hypothetically, a whole bunch of IGN editors and hosts just happened to play Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order so intensively that a bunch of us finished within the first week? What if they all told you what they thought at once with brief reviews and personal scores, and we rounded them all up in one place instead of spreading those opinions out over our numerous shows and over weeks or months?

Let’s call this a grand experiment: here, starting with the official review, are eight different perspectives on Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order from IGN staffers who’ve played it from start to finish. Tell us what you think!

Dan Stapleton, Executive Editor of Game Reviews, on PC

It’s been ages since we got a great single-player Star Wars action game, but Jedi: Fallen Order makes up for a lot of lost time. A strong cast sells a dark story while keeping things fun and loyal to Star Wars lore, and fast, challenging combat mixes with energetic platforming, decent puzzles, and diverse locations to explore for an all-around amazing game. Read the full Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order review.

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Mitchell Saltzman, Editorial Producer, on Xbox One X:

If there’s one thing that Jedi: Fallen Order reminded me of over and over as I played through its campaign, it’s that Jedi are badass. Respawn not only totally nailed the power fantasy of swinging a lightsaber and using the Force, but impressively managed to balance that with a feeling of vulnerability that makes Jedi: Fallen Order feel constantly challenging without ever feeling unfair. Even when I was pitted against what feels like 20 enemies all at once, I always felt like I had the tools to survive, thanks to the ability to reflect blaster shots with well-timed blocks, immensely powerful Force powers, and the fact that the lightsaber will always kill weak enemies in just one strike.

“ I always felt like I had the tools to survive.

Fortunately, the good far outweighs the bad in this case, and the worst fights were usually relegated to a few optional battles against enemies that guard collectibles or upgrades. All in all, I had a wonderful time with Jedi: Fallen Order. More than anything else, I’m just glad that a Star Wars game other than Battlefront finally made it to the finish line.

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Samuel Claiborn, Managing Editor, on Xbox One X:

“ The star is BD-1, who lightens up even the darkest (and dullest) scenes.

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Destin Legarie, Senior Features Producer, on PC:

Jedi: Fallen Order feels like a retro game, and that's a good thing. Its primary influence, worn on its oversized Jedi robe sleeve, is clearly Metroid Prime; both games share intricately connected alien landscapes, scannable creatures and lore, and a head-spinning 3D map. Metroid Prime may seem like a modern game relative to the original, but it is now 17 years old (I hate to remind fellow old-school gamers of this, but 17 years before Metroid Prime, Paperboy was the new hotness). Other olde-tymey influences are Tomb Raider (there are puzzle-filled tombs) and Batman: Arkham Asylum (the combat), and of course the Star Wars prequel-adjacent setting rounds out the turn-of-the-century-vibe. It is nostalgic and comforting; like many other retro games, I love it.What brings me down a bit is that although the world built by Respawn is full of interesting characters, great battles, and some pretty settings, it's also kind of devoid of exciting things to hunt for. Nearly everything hidden is purely cosmetic, save for light XP bonuses and a scant few health and Force upgrades. You can stray from the path but, aside from one really cool sequence-breaking opportunity to get a lightsaber upgrade, there's really no reason to explore unless you’re dead set on 100%-ing it.

If you enjoy a gameplay loop of difficult, enemy-laden combat puzzles that reset when you rest, and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order satisfies that love with five planets full of unique enemy types to test my mettle. The addition of a story showcasing characters who are forced to stop running from their past and face it head-on sends us to these planets where they’ll encounter their inner demons and need to overcome them. The result is one of the most compelling Star Wars stories in gaming history.

“ Jedi: Fallen Order almost nails its combat system.

While the skyboxes, landscapes, and world design occasionally stopped me dead in my tracks to admire them, some of the unfortunately modeled compatriots to your cause or oddly placed jumping puzzles can also do so for all the wrong reasons. For example, the wookiees look more like a carpet with eyeballs attached and a few brown tubes of paper glued to them – they’re one of the worst interpretations I’ve ever seen of our furry fan favorites. And then there’s the platforming, which will uncommonly send you flying into a realm of geometric shards as you fall endlessly to your death. Luckily, these negative moments are so infrequent that they are far outshined by what is otherwise a near-masterpiece of Jedi vs. the world game design. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a must-play in 2019 and will likely be a contender for my Game of the Year.

Tina Amini, Editor-in-Chief, Games, on PlayStation 4:

“ The story, characters, and charm of its one-off jokes nail the ambiance of a Star Wars world.

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Brian Altano, Host & Producer, on PlayStation 4 Pro

“ Fallen Order is a masterful take on the Star Wars universe.

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Jon Ryan, Senior Editor, on PlayStation 4 Pro:

When it comes to a Star Wars game, expectations will always be high. It’s gotta live up to the energy of the best movies in the series and simultaneously be the flag that flies against the worst practices of some of its former games. But what I didn’t expect was a harmonious concoction of the best pieces of the Tomb Raider, Uncharted, and Souls series tied together with a charming Star Wars bow.As much as I loved listening to grunt-type Storm Troopers drop lines mid-combat (like, “Well, that’s a blow to morale,” as their friends die by my hand) and the thrill of stringing wall runs and double jumps together, I finished the roughly 20-hour story wishing I could have spent more time with it. I loved the cadence of how levels open up and present new pathways as you gain new abilities, motivating me towards exploration, but I could’ve stood to journey through a larger variety of planets. And meeting new characters with distinct personalities fleshed out the otherwise fairly straightforward story, but they were underused. The ominous Second Sister villain, the flippant Greez and his hidden heart, and the powerful and graceful Nightsister Merrin are all relegated mostly to cutscenes between planets (or boss fights) and back-and-forth dialogue you can choose to engage with or not just before you embark on your next mission. Peppered between there are a handful of other characters that scratch just above the surface of their introductions. Everything that was there was good — I just wanted more of it.In no category does Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order reinvent the wheel in any capacity. It is, by all means, a triple-A video game checklist that mines and combines already established systems, conventions, and tropes from previously successful third-person action-adventure games and wraps them in a familiar multi-billion-dollar franchise. And you know what? It works fantastically. After years of canceled promises of single-player Star Wars games, I’m totally okay with getting something that feels and plays like Star Wars video game comfort food. The story is excellent, the lightsaber combat kicks ass, and the worlds are genuinely exciting to move through, explore, and plunder for treasures.From the closing of Lucasarts to the game cancellations at EA, I’m sad that we lost so many potentially great Star Wars games over the years. But as Lor San Tekka said at the beginning of 2015’s The Force Awakens, this will begin to make things right. As a huge Star Wars fan, I’m ecstatic that this game exists and that there’s so much to do and explore even after the credits roll.I loved a lot about Fallen Order: its world, story, and characters all absolutely nail the vibe of the classic trilogy, which to my mind has been missing from most of the Star Wars games we've seen over the past decade. It even managed to drag some honest-to-gods nostalgia for the prequels out of me in its opening moments – the prequels!

“ I found its dodging/parrying system in combat somewhat unreliable.

Similarly, while I did enjoy the challenging take on lightsaber combat, I found its dodging/parrying system in combat somewhat unreliable. I know many of you will simply say I need to "git güd," but I fought my way through Bloodborne and Dark Souls, and in those games I always knew that when I died it was due to a mistake that I made. I can't always say the same for Fallen Order, particularly in later boss battles, which gave me reason to doubt its input accuracy. Even so, this is easily the best Star Wars story of the last few years (and yes, that's counting all the Disney movies), and I'm eager to see where Respawn takes the crew of the Mantis from here.

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Lucy O’Brien, Executive Editor of Features, On Xbox One X

“ These are deeply considered worlds, sprawling and unique, and wonderfully vertical.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order does a great job of mixing together a tough, Souls-like gameplay loop with a rollicking Star Wars adventure that feels right at home in the canon. There’s very little bloat in its 20-odd-hour running time, and I was left breathless after its stunning finale, thrilled to see where the series will go next.Its controls feel right at home for anyone who’s played a Souls-like game, even if the idea of death and rebirth make less thematic sense in the Star Wars universe than they do in From Software’s series. Enemy encounters present genuine challenges, and defeating a particularly tough one, even on default Jedi Knight difficulty, feels like a real achievement. The best games make you consider each battle and plan your assault accordingly, and Jedi: Fallen Order does just that. More, it nails the feeling of wielding a lightsaber, which is a truly magical thing.

Vitally, it’s peppered with wonderful characters. Cal is an endearingly kind protagonist, while his mentor Cere has a surprisingly complex backstory that provides some of Jedi: Fallen Order’s most heart-wrenching moments. I felt that this was written by people who really understand what makes the best Star Wars heroes (and villains) sing, while their biggest achievement might be creating Star Wars’ most adorable sidekick droid to date, BD-1.

The only thing that lets Jedi: Fallen Order down is an overall lack of polish in its plentiful platforming sections. I couldn’t count the number of times I fell off a slide because I turned slightly too far left or right during a sequence that was meant to feel cinematic and seamless, or plummeted to my death after failing to catch a hard-to-see rope, interrupting the momentum. There were enough of these janky moments that I felt my time with Jedi: Fallen Order fell short of amazing, even if everything else works. Even so, I’m so happy we’ve finally got a great Star Wars game after such a lengthy wait. Bring on the next one.

Just to reiterate, this is an experiment we were only able to pull off because the stars aligned, but it was something we wanted to try and to see how the community felt about it. Let us know in the comments!