I think the games in the Gradius-series on the Playstation 2 are both rare and expensive. After what I've seen of Gradius on this platform, it looks simply amazing if one enjoyes shooters of this kind.
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This is resurrecting a very old thread. I bet there must be a lot more PS2 titles now becoming harder to find and pushing their price up. Will have to have a look on ebay and see what has lots of bids.

Gradius is definitely a great shoot 'em up series, with Gradius V on the PS2 being especially good. Still using mostly a 2D playfield, but rendered on 3D, it uses some nice location transitions by rotating and moving the camera with the 3D environment. Such 3D effects in a 2D Shoot 'em up were first seem in the famous shooter Ikaruga. And have you noticed how the Amiga game Project-X stole the power-up system from Gradius? The power-up bar that moves up through the options as you collect power-ups until it reaches the one you want to activate.
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Having a quick look on ebay, some PS2 games look like they have become quite collectable. Although some of the sellers might just be over optimistic!

Not that many PS2 games detching that high a price though. But quite a few still selling equal to, or slightly more than their original retail value.

PS1 games are however still a lot more collectable and sort after, as reflected in the list I've posted below the PS2 one.

Hyper Street Fighter II anniversary edition - £149.99
Spiderman 3 - £100
Disgaea Hour of Darkness (NTSC) - £99.99
Streatfighter EX 3 - £99.99
Star Wars Battlefront II - £99.98 (I don't believe this is that rare)
Magna Carta: Tears of Blood Deluxe Box Set (NTSC) - £69.99
Dark Cloud - £69.99
Dark Cloud 2 - £69.99
Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistence - £55
Disgaea 2 - £54.99
Shadow of the Colossus - £49.99
Champions of Norrath - £49.99
Phantom Brave - £49.99
Magna Carta (PAL) - £47.95
ICO - £43.78
Rule of Rose - £44.99
Rez - £39.99
Unlimited Saga - £39.99
Star ocean - Till the end of time - £39.99
SNK vs Capcom - £39.99
Suikoden IV - £39.99
Suikoden V - £39.99
Final Fantasy X - £35.99
Naruto Ultimate Ninja - £37
Hitman 2 Trilogy - £34.99

Rare PS1 games I also noticed still sort after:

Legend of Legaia - £90.00
Vandal Hearts - £79.99
Ogre Battle - £69.99
Alundra 2 - £49.99 - 59.99
Broken Sword/Myth/Road Rash (Charity compilation) - £59.99
Darkstalkers - £59.99
Dino Crisis 2 - £59.99
Dragon Valor - £59.99
Kurushi Final - £59.99
Sega Frontier 2 - £59.99
The Legend of the Dragoon - £59.99
Discworld 2 - £54.99 - 49.99
Resident Evil 2 (sealed) - £51.99 - 49.99
Ballistic - £49.99
Broken Sword 2 - £49.99
Castlevania Chronicles - £49.99
Dynasty Warriors - £49.99
Evil Zone - £49.99
Panzer General - £49.99
Ridge Racer - £49.99
Street Fighter Alpha 3 - £49.99 (DC version is a lot rarer so should be worth more!)
Tekken 2 - £49.99
Wipeout - £49.99
Suikoden - £49.99
Star Ocean The Second Story - £49.99
Final Fantasy Origins - £46.99
Metal Gear Solid - £45
G-Police - £44.99
GunGage - £44.99
Metal Slug X - £44.99
Star Gladiator - £44.99
Tekken 3 - £44.99
Tekken - £44.99
Kula World - £44.99
Discworld - £44.99
Tombraider - £44.99
Thousand Arms (NTSC) - £42.50
Alien Resurrection - £39.99
Atari Anniversary - £39.99
Bomberman - £39.99
Bust-A-Move (all versions) - £39.99 - 35.00
Colin McRae Rally 1 or 2 - £39.99
Gran Turismo 2 - £39.99
Star Wars - Masters of Teras Kasi - £39.99
Syndicate Wars - £39.99
Theme Park - £39.99
Tobal No.1 - £39.99
Soulblade - £39.99
Magic the gathering battlemage - £37.99
Streetfighter EX Plus - £37.99
Tombraider 2 - £37.99
Capcom vs SNK - £34.99
Deathtrap Dungeon - £34.99
DieHard Trilogy - £34.99
Jade Cocoon - £34.99
Koudelka - £34.99
Dino Crisis - £34.99
Final Fantasy IX - £34.99
Vagrant Story - £34.99
Final Fantasy VIII - £34.99
Chocobo Racing - £34.99
Final Fantasy Anthology - £34.99
V-Rally 2 - £34.99
Gran Turismo - £32.50
Ridge Racer Revolution - £32.99

Interesting to see that for both PS2 and PS1 games, RPGs and Beat 'em ups are still the 2 most popular genres, as has been the case for collectors for a long time.
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I know that Xenogears for PSX always sells for very high.
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Actually I was surprised by Xenogears. Back when it came out in the US and wasn't available in the UK it was very sort after and collectable and would often sell for over £50. And a couple of years later if started to sell for around £100. However, looking on ebay now, you can find it selling for around £10, although that is an auction with 4 days left and not a BIN. I'm going to watch that one and see where it ends.

Although someone is currently selling the complete series of Xenogears, plus all 3 episodes of Xenosaga for $299 US (£196) BIN, or starting at $119.99 US (£79).
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I still have an original Final Fantasy VII in french, maybe I should sell that at the french eBay.
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The English version of Final Fantasy VII also doesn't sell for very much these days. There are copies for less than £10 at the moment on ebay.

I think with FFVII it was the game in the Final Fantasy series that made the series famous. It was the first game to really show what could be achieved on the original Playstation, and every PSX owner I knew bought the game, so a lot of copies are out there. A lot of buyers didn't actually play the game that far into the story, but were just buying it for the technical amazement of the game. It was single handedly responsible for getting a lot more people interested in the RPG genre, and I was surprised by the number of my friends who did actually complete it, or get a long way through the game. Many of them not playing RPGs that much before it, or playing that many games for very long. Equally I knew a lot of people that never got beyond the first disc, and maybe only got as far as the initial Chocobo farming, if that.

I do remember a friend being quite annoyed because every time he got home from university and wanted to play it some more to progress he would find his girlfriend was already playing the game and had progressed further than he had.
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Ha, that's funny, can imagine how frustrating that was

I have the french original from a friend, he played it for 30 minutes, then stopped, he really is the RPG hater, but only because he doesn't like the turn based stuff at all. He wants action on the screen, whether FPS or racing games.

As you know it was also my first JRPG I played, and I played it on the PC, as I didn't own any console yet. After that, I still played FFVIII on the PC, before then finally buying a PSX because I saw how many of these style RPGs were already out. After that, I wanted to own every existing RPG, which I eventually did.
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The PC version of FFVII seems to be more sort after now than the PSX one. Think it is a lot rarer, plus also harder to get working on current OS's, although there are a set of patches to help, plus in Windows 7 Ultimate or Pro you have the XP mode to help further.
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I remember there was a patch, which I had to use straight away, when using a 3dfx Voodoo card, the screen was upside down.
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