[To make sure, NES port screwed up that one; all it takes to endure it is lying down and bashing on a knife button (all the more trivial with auto-fire). On the other hand, GBA port, with or without Konami code, is way less frantic than arcade original on settings that MAME version I played it on deems default, at least in the first stage (sends enemies your way more sparsely), but it benefits from a separate jump button (I think the original would have to be ROM-hacked for the sake of separating jump from up). GBA port also offers 2 player co-op with only one cart, yay.]
Anyway, that finale is the real thing on GBA, unlike on NES. Valid no-flamethrower, knife-only tactics here - NOT to move left or right, only to press jump or knife button within timeframes harshly imposed on you, difficulty coming from enemies' procedurally generated order of their arrivals and air-kicks timing. These days, I presume, such gameplay is nothing unique in mobile phone games you operate with one thumb. When I played it, however, the similarity of it to Parappa-style games was striking. Now I read the genre was technically conceived in the early 1970s...
Spoiler
Kasco (Kansei Seiki Seisakusho) created a rhythm-based electro-mechanical arcade game, designed by Kenzou Furukawa and produced by Kenji Nagata. According to Nagata, it was Furukawa's "idea for a game where you’d lift girls skirts in time to some rhythm", inspired by the 1969 Japanese Oh! Mouretsu commercials.
*) Looking up various playthrough recordings on YouTube, I've yet to find one where they wouldn't use flamethrower there, admittedly. Doing it strictly jump & knife way on GBA seemed like the right way to me, but then, I couldn't be bothered even trying to reach that point on MAME, because, eurgh, up for jump.