Great game. The cinematics are even better with the video cart. You can do a region mod really easily if you have a soldering iron. You could probably do it with the most basic skills, it's like 3 wires soldered to the board and to a switch so you wont need that cart anymore. The soldering points are even labeled what region they are.
I played it all the way through on my PSP a couple days ago (before my damn memory stick died -_- unbelievably pissed about that...) and I LOVED it! I don't see why everyone hates this game so much. Sure your character sprite is large, but your hitbox is pretty forgiving. It helps if you look at the game as more of a side-scrolling action game, rather than a shmup. However, I'm a huge Macross fan, so I may be a bit biased.
I may give that mod a shot, as I've yet to get into soldering/modding consoles & I've been meaning to for some time.