Recently, I just got some spare cash and wanted to buy a game.

What are some other non-MR Tecmo games everyone here likes?

There's the Gallop Racer game(s). I rented one, to see if it was any good. It was. You might try it.

I like the Fatal Frame games, if you are into playing something scary and a little more mature. (blood, gore, general scarieness = M rating) These are probably the top-rated, best selling games Tecmo has on PS2 right now. I really usually cannot stand games where you move a character around and find stuff, but I really got immersed in these games. And, unlike the Silent Hill series, they don't rely of showing you perverse things to try and scare you, they use ghosts popping up out of nowhere and locales with secrets. Oh yeah, to add to the fear, you don't have a gun. (you are fighting ghosts, bullets go right through ghosts) You use a camera to disable the ghosts, and it takes some skill to do it right.

Rygar is a very beautiful and fairly difficult hack and slash type game it's only major drawback is being fairly short. It features some of the best looking environments ever made on PS2.

I also enjoyed the Deception series for PSX. Ok, it's a PSX series, so the graphics aren't anything spectactular compared to newer games. But, they have solid gameplay and a great creepy goth feel to them. A PS2 sequel to Deception 2 is coming next year!

One of the categories of game that I enjoy is puzzle games. Not everyone is into them, but if you are, then Tecmo Stackers is a solid puzzle game. It was made for PSX, so, once again the graphics are dated, but it is fun and very quirky. (I like quirky.) It also outsold MR1.

If you are looking for an experience more like the MR games, where you focus on tweaking things and work on long-term goals, Gallop Racer is good. The first was on PSX, and a lot of fans swear that's the best. (kind of like some other Tecmo series that debuted on PSX and featured breeding, hmmm....) The move to PS2 saw improved graphics, but the assistant is a super-deformed Japanese character that seems to offend some western players. Of all the GR games, GR2004 is perhaps the hardest, in that you need to play through several tutorials to understand the fairly complex and new (to this version) interface. Of the PS2 versions, GR2001 seems to be the most popular, and it does feature a Horse you can buy named after me. (yes! I have a videogame character named after me! It's still exciting after 3 years!) However, from a technicl standpoint, I think GR2004 is overall the best offering.

I hope this helps. I own pretty much every game Tecmo has made, except a few Japanese soccer titles for Super Famicom that are hard to find. So, if you have questions about what any game is like, feel free to ask.

I like the Dead or Alive series (though the most recent on the PS2 is Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore...which is like four years old), and the Fatal Frame series. No game compares in scariness to Fatal Frame in the dark.

I highly recommend the Deception series. However Lisa I had already thought Tecmo realeased Decpetion 3 for the PSX.

Decption 3 is for PSX, but it's not a direct sequel. The PS2 game that is coming has the same female lead character, and a continuation of her storyline.

Well, I need something I can play maybe half to an hour a week. So nothing too involved, something more along the lines of pick up and play. By involved, I mean, you shouldn't need to make notes or anything, as you almost have to in monster rancher. (my schedule is getting pretty hectic, as you've probably noticed from my decline of posts and absence from chat).

I did play a demo of Rygar and really liked it. The fighting system was very unique for this genre of games (I mean, a shield on a string, you can't beat that...), and as you've said it's got very pretty vivid graphics.
I think I will more/most likely go with this... however...
I have this wierd thing of trying to scare myself going on right now. How scary is fatal frame? Which one is scarier? (I understand it's a series, no?) Is it as involved as MR or can you enjoy it without devoting too much time to it? Does it have a deep story line?

Fatal Frame is more of a traditional adventure type game, in terms of gameplay, meaning that you walk your character through a series of environments and solve puzzles. So, yes you can pick it up and play, then play more later. You might take notes on where you found things for some puzzles, but really, it has sections so you can complete one area and save and return to move on to other areas.

I thought the first one was scarier, in a really primal 'what's going to happen next?' sort of way. The second one has a bit more mysticism to it, and that sort of took the immediate edge off the fear for me, because my brain kept thinking about the internal logic of the ghost world. (I hope that makes sense!)

In terms of how scary is this game, well.... First, let me say that the controls are very good, and moving from room to room is great, no load time. Usually when I play this sort of 'walk your character around' game, part of my brain is working the game mechanics. I am the sort of person who is always cynically analizing the game's AI, game physics, and the art production. Playing this game was the first time I ever got totally immersed in a character-based game. My first night playing FF1, I was just completely transported into the game -so much so that I did not realize that there was a HUGE thunderstorm going on outside my house until the power failed and I realized that I had not even heard a lot of lightening, I was so engrossed in the game.