Rank the Mass Effect games for:

1. Story
2. Gameplay
3. Characters

For me.

Story goes ME1, ME2, ME3

Gameplay goes: ME3, ME2, ME1

Characters goes ME2, ME3, ME1 though ME3 only beats out ME1 if you have Javik. So in terms of out of the box it's very even between ME3 and ME1. ME2 wins because of Mordin Solus. Frankly the information you get from Javik and the ME3 Eden Prime mission almost makes it a crime that this was DLC.

How about you?

Not sure how you can rank me1 story so high cosidering the main story is just a pointless rabit hole. If saren and sovereign needed access to the citadel, they certainly didnt need to find the conduit, they had access to that before shephard even showed up...

Anyway, this is how i would rank them.

Story
1 me3
2 me2
3 me1

Gameplay
1 me3
2 me2
3 me1

Characters
1 me2
2 me3
3 me1

2 > 1 > 3.

I don't think you're doing it right

story is good, but characters are quite bland, but I wouldn't expect anything better from western RPG.

Story: Mass Effect 1
Characters: Mass Effect 2
Gameplay: Mass Effect 3

Story: ME3 > ME1 > ME2

ME3 takes this for me due to the depressing tone and and some really quite brutal events. You really get the sense of foreboding during the whole game whilst the story has a great sense of scale. It really conveys the helplessness of war and existence itself. ME1's was boringly traditional if you'd played a Bioware game before. The story meandered from one event to the next, following the same tried and tested tropes and formulas they'd used in all their previous RPGs. ME2 was different but the over arching story is relatively simplistic once you take out the smaller, more personal side-stories that the game was built on.

Gameplay: ME3 > ME2 > ME1

This should be a no brainer. The shooting mechanics in the original were terrible with stupid ally AI. You could play it as a more traditional turn-based RPG (defeating the point of the shooting) but a pretty poor one at that. ME2 greatly improved in all areas of gameplay mechanics although simplified the RPG systems a bit too much whilst ME3 further improved the mechanics and balanced them with more RPG elements.

Characters: ME2 > ME3 > ME1

ME2 first because the whole game is centralised around discovering the party that you build up. Most of the story is centred around their personal motivations. Then you have characters like the troubled but hilarious Mordin, a deeply religious dying man in Thane or the psychologically damaged, Riddick inspired Jack. The second choice was a lot harder as part of the reason ME3's characters are good is because of the events of 1 & 2, but it just takes it for me.

Story: Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3
Characters: Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Mass Effect 1
Gameplay: Mass Effect 3, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 1

Story: Mass Effect 3, Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 2
Gameplay: Mass Effect 3, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 1
Characters: Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Mass Effect 1

All in all: Mass Effect 3, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 1