Alternative Foreign Theme Song / Video Games

• The North American version of Sonic the Hedgehog CD changes its opening theme from "Sonic - You Can Do Anything" to "Sonic Boom" and its ending theme from "Cosmic Eternity - Believe in Yourself" to a slower version of "Sonic Boom" (even though the original songs were in English). It also changes the whole soundtrack! (Except the Past themes, which were played in PCM) In 2011, versions of Sonic CD with both the Japanese and American soundtrack became available worldwide, with the former lacking lyrics in the opening & ending themes due to being unable to clear the rights with the singer's estate. The lyrics were restored when the game was rereleased again in Sonic Origins.
• The English version of Final Fantasy XIII changes the Japanese theme, "Kimi ga Iru Kara", to "My Hands", by Leona Lewis. This is justified because the dubbers weren't able to translate the whole song into English.
• Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus has "Black Jack" by Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra as its Japanese theme song.
• R-Type Final uses the Blue Man Group's "Piano Smasher" as the ending theme for the American version.
• Tales Series: Destiny, Eternia, Symphonia (and sequel), Phantasia (GBA and iOS) and Legendia all had its vocal theme songs replaced by original orchestral compositions. Symphonia (and sequel)'s and Legendia's compositions are special in that they were actually composed by series composer Motoi Sakuraba for the international release. The GBA version of Phantasia simply replaced the song with its overworld music, while the iOS version used an orchestral song synced to the video of the PS1 opening FMV. Abyss, Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology, and Tales of Zestiria used instrumental versions of their original songs.
• Mega Man 8 uses very different instrumental opening and closing themes in the English version. Compare to the original Japanese themes, "Electrical Communication" and "Brand New Way".
• Mega Man X: Starting from Mega Man X3, The japanese versions of the games would have lyrical intro and staff roll themes in japanese, and instrumental songs in the western versions.
  • Mega Man X3 Has ''One More Time'' for the intro and ''believe'' for the staff roll. Compare with the western intro and staff roll themes.
  • Mega Man X4 has ''Makenai Ai Ga Kitto Aru'' for the intro and ''One More Chance'' for the staff roll. Compare with the western intro and staff roll themes.
  • Mega Man X5 has ''Monkey'' for the intro and ''Mizu No Naka'' for the staff roll. Compare with the western intro and staff roll themes (The latter is used as the bad ending theme for the Japanese version, and for both endings for the western version).
  • Mega Man X6 averts this, as the game was rushed so badly that the western versions has kept both of the Japanese intro themes, ''Moonlight'' and ''The Answer'', and the ending theme, ''IDEA''. The Mega Man X collection version of the game replaces the intro theme with another one.
  • Mega Man X7 has ''Code Rush'' for the intro and ''Lazy Mind'' for the staff roll. The western version has a new intro theme, but uses an instrumental version of Lazy Mind as a staff roll instead of having a new theme.
  • Mega Man X8 has ''Wild Fang'' for both the intro and the staff roll. Compare with the western Intro theme and staff roll.
  • Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X, the remake of Mega Man X, has ''Don't wanna be'' for the intro. Compare with the western version.
• "ROCK U" by rav-x feat. Namie Amuro was used as the Japanese theme song of Call of Duty: Black Ops.
• The Japanese version of Crash Nitro Kart has a different theme song in both the console and GBA versions.
• The Japanese version uses "Phantom Planet" by Beat Crusaders to advertise LittleBigPlanet. "Yarakai Heart" was the commercial theme song for the Japanese version of the second game.
• inFAMOUS 2 uses "Ichioku Bun No Ichi No Shousetsu" by Uverworld as the theme song.
• The Japanese version of Sands of Destruction opens with "Crash" by AAA,^note They also did the Anime Theme Song "Zero" (which was unchanged, even in the English dub), and the two were released on the same album while the English game opens with "Time's Arm" performed by Czech Philharmonic Collegium. The words are not in English, however; they're in Latin, making it also a Foreign Language Theme.
• Thief II: The Metal Age provides a peculiar example in its German (and only German) localization. The credits video for the game and a few ambients in certain in-game locations use the song "Accingite Vos", by the German band Subway to Sally. Weirdly, all other versions of the game don't include it, to the point that even in the English language version, there is no background music in the credits video. The lenghth of the credits video and how well it syncs with the song seems to indicate it was originally planned to be released as part of the non-German versions too (including the original English language one), but some last-minute copyright issue probably prevented that. Some surviving online news releases from the time of the game's development indicate this might have been the case, as there was no mention of the band contributing music only to the German language version of the game.
• The Japanese version of the first Resident Evil game has I Won't Let This End as a Dream... and Icy Gaze, both sung by Fumitaka Fuchigami.
• Yo-kai Watch:
  • The English intro to Yo-kai Watch uses an original theme by Jeff "Swampy" Marsh (co-creator of Phineas and Ferb) instead of the translated version of "Gera Gera Po" (which was used for the early episodes of the dubbed anime before being replaced with the new theme).
  • Yo-kai Watch 2 features a remixed version of the English theme rather Japanese versions remixed "Gera Gera Po". The intro's visuals are also different.
• The English version of Monster Rancher 4 used two new songs by The Cooler Kids for its opening and ending themes instead of the original Japanese songs or translations of them. Unlike most examples, the animation is still exactly the same as the Japanese version and the new song was composed to match the animation.
• Although previous NIS America localizations of Danganronpa games kept the Japanese vocal ending themes intact, the localization of Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony replaced the ending theme, "Dan Kusari -break-" by Megumi Ogata, with an extended version of the opening theme titled "The END of DNG".
• All Gran Turismo games, in Japan, use "Moon Over the Castle" by Masahiro Andoh as the theme song. It is always changed to some licensed track for the Western release.
• WarioWare: Smooth Moves:
  • The title theme in the Japanese version was originally an upbeat version of the Temple of Form theme. For the international versions, it was replaced with a rearrangement of the title theme from Mega Microgame$! instead.
  • Different music is used for the Form Baton tutorial sequences in the Japanese, Korean and international versions.
• In Star Sweep, the Japanese version features a vocal ending theme, which is retained in the European version but replaced with the instrumental theme from the arcade soundtrack in the US version.
• Tail Concerto's theme in the Japanese and French versions is "For Little Tail", performed by Japanese singer-songwriter KOKIA. However, it's because of its outsourced nature that the American release replaced it with an entirely new instrumental theme made by the game's composer instead. Said theme doesn't have a name, and it was the only song omitted from the Perfect Soundtrack remastered album.

---