After playing through the Japanese Rom on Xbox Live Arcade I have to say, it's really disappointing when going back to the Western version, the main reason being: there are no power or health pick-ups.

I'm guessing Konami made this strategic decision so they could get the user to pump more quarters into the machine, but honestly, this just feels like a very cheap and manipulative way to increase the game's difficulty, not to mention it severely limits the only real difference of each playable character.

Other than that it's still the same game, the graphics and sound are still pretty good and the enemy variety prevents it from being too repetitive, but the boss fights aren't quite as fun when you're not given any means to recover health or special attacks.

In theory, the game may only cost a quarter, but honestly, it just might be cheaper to buy this for the PS3 or Xbox 360.