Suspiciously Similar Song / Capcom

• Ace Attorney:
  • "Pursuit - Corner the Culprit" from the original Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney sounds weirdly similar to the Cheetahmen theme from Action 52, so much so that there is a mashup combining the two.
    • the song also resembles "Those Who Fight" from Final Fantasy VII.
    • It also resembles "Snake Eyes" From Wiz 'n' Liz.
  • Dick Gumshoe's theme sounds like a mix of the Terminator 2 theme and "The Long and Winding Road" by The Beatles. Part of the melody also appears in "Grand Prix" by T-Square.
  • The beginning of the trial theme is ripped straight out of "Thousand Knives" by Ryuichi Sakamoto, who Shu Takumi apparently was a fan of.
  • Investigation ~ Core 2001 sounds like Fighter Select theme from Streeet Fighter II.
  • Victor Kudo's theme from Trials and Tribulations heavily resembles the old Japanese war song "Sen'yu (Comrades)". This was probably intentional, given the character's personality and the official name of the track ("Victor Kudo - Martial Anthem of Misery").
  • "A Prosecutor's Mutter ~ Fated Reunion" from Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth is very similar to "Hey Jude", which the composer once said was his favourite song by Paul McCartney in an interview.
  • Sebastian Debeste's second theme from the sequel is very similar to Paul Mauriat's cover of "El Bimbo". Mauriat was a conductor, so he even shared a trait with Sebastian himself, since he waves a baton in some sprites.
  • In-universe in Spirit of Justice: The Kingdom of Khura'in has a Mockbuster of The Steel Samurai called The Plumed Punisher with a similar theme tune, only using traditional Khura'inese instruments instead of The Steel Samurai's taiko drums. The similarity of the two songs is a plot point in Case 3.
  • The beginning part of the melody in Lord Stronghart's theme from The Great Ace Attorney sounds a lot like Genesis' Firth of Fifth.
• When Capcom re-released Aladdin for the GBA, their rights to "Friend Like Me" and "A Whole New World" had expired, so they were forced to replace them with similar sounding new tunes. The original SNES version did this from the start with a "One Jump Ahead" substitute for the first level, and an "Arabian Nights" one for a cutscene.
• Breath of Fire:
  • The Ending theme that plays in Breath of Fire I sounds very similar to the closing credits of Star Wars and the Superman theme, both of which were composed by John Williams.
  • An "Eye of the Tiger" soundalike plays in Breath of Fire III when Deis awakens. Followed by Falling Green sounding similar to Secret of the Forest from Chrono Trigger and the Game Over theme and Chrono Trigger's Windy Scene during the first notes.
  • In Breath of Fire IV the leitmotif of a man called Kahn, which is named "~A Man~", sounds quite similar to Wipeout by The Surfaris. The irony of that is Kahn is usually not fought within a beach-like area anywhere.
  • "Profit" from the first game resembles "Sing of the Lord's Goodness."
  • The second overworld theme of the first game contains a recurring riff that parrots "Bella Notte" from Lady and the Tramp.
  • The theme of Dologany in the second game resembles the main theme of Mickey/'s Christmas Carol.
• Ingrid's theme from Capcom Fighting Evolution, Heat Haze, sounds similar to Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.
• Wipe Out, the theme of the Osaka Stage from Capcom vs. SNK 2, is pretty much a rock-heavy version of Lei Wulong's theme from Tekken 3 (moreso the OST than the AST).
  • This is even funnier when you realize that Lei's theme is a cover of Steam by East 17, which preceded T3 by a margin of about two years. The lyrics "Outside it's raining / but inside it's wet" is a bit humorous given the nature of Lei's stage in that game.
  • That's not the only example from the Capcom vs. series. Back in the first Capcom vs. SNK, Akuma's theme (Worth of my Fist) sounds very much like the music for the Spaceway in TimeSplitters. In Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All Stars, the ear-invading, crowd-pleasing ^note We kid you not. BGM that accompanies the Orbital Ring Systems Cargo Bay stage is easily mistakable as Alice Deejay's Better Off Alone.
  • In several Vs. Capcom games, the Capcom characters tend to have Leitmotifs that are arrangements of themes from their respective series, but strangely enough, Captain Commando's theme in Marvel Vs. Capcom doesn't sound like any of the BGMs in his game. It seems that his theme in MvC may have been inspired by (or actually be a remix of) Cyclops' theme from Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter.
• The first Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers video game for the NES uses a soundalike of "When I'm Sixty-Four" in a few levels.
• "Area H" from Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2 is a Haunted House level that sounds VERY Castlevania inspired.
• In Dead Rising 2, the music in the Americana Casino has parts that are very similar to AC/DC's "Thunderstruck". Why'd they'd choose to rip off an Australian band for an American-themed casino is anyone's guess (although the song does mention Texas).
  • The Terror is Reality theme sounds an awful lot like Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People."
  • Chuck Greene's boss music (warning: title and picture contain spoilers) in Dead Rising 2: Off the Record sounds an awful lot like Metallica's "Sad But True"
• Devil May Cry:
  • "Frozen Frog" from Devil May Cry 4 uses a synth wail that is also used in "Drop Out" from DDR Extreme, and Chaotic Inferno Zone Act 3 from Sonic Rivals 2. It was also sampled in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl for the cries of Dialga, Heatran, and the Garchomp evolution line.
  • Also from Devil May Cry 4, the latter half of "Shall Never Surrender" uses a drum beat that was also sampled in Bionicle Heroes for the Matoran Enclave.
  • "Abyssal Time" in Devil May Cry 5 greatly resembles "Rules of Nature" from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Similarly, "Blazing Muscle" has portions that resembles "Collective Consciousness".
• The surf rock track that underscores the first stage of God Hand as well as serving as a sort of Leitmotif for Gene, officially titled "Gene's Rock-a-Bye", is clearly inspired by The Ventures' famous theme to Hawaii Five-O.
• Legendary Wings:
  • The middle part of the Stage 1 theme resembles "Challenger 1985" from Gradius.
  • The Stage 2 (Stage 3 in the arcade version) theme resembles the title song from The Sound of Music.
  • The A-section of the arcade Stage 2 (NES Stage 3) theme is similar to the B-section of the Indiana Jones theme.
• Magical Tetris Challenge: "Story 2," one of the cutscene themes, sounds almost like an instrumental cover of the Ghostbusters theme. It has similar-sounding instruments, a similar rhythm, and it even seems to be in the same key.
• Resident Evil:
  • The end theme to the original Resident Evil, "Still Dawn," is clearly inspired by the second half of Layla by Derek and the Dominos.
  • In Resident Evil 2, the introduction cue for Tyrant T-103-R is lifted almost directly from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Lacrimosa".
  • "Deathtrap" from REmake and "Agony" from Resident Evil 4 are suspiciously similar to "Steadfast Extermination" and "Hell's Churn", respectively, from the PlayStation version of Doom.
• Sengoku Basara: The first game's character select theme, "Gearing Up" sounds completely like the character select theme of the arcade version of Tekken 3.
• Street Fighter:
  • Chun Li's ending theme in Super Street Fighter II is absurdly similar to the main theme of The Last Emperor, written by David Byrne.
  • Guile's theme from Street Fighter II is based on T-Square's "Travelers".
  • You can't not notice the similarity between the start of Ken's theme from Street Fighter II and Cheap Trick's Mighty Wings. Some people suspect that it was originally meant to be Guile's theme since "Mighty Wings" was also used in Top Gun, but Capcom got cold feet about the legality of such an on-the-nose Shout-Out just like they did with "Mike Bison".
  • The main melody of Ken's theme (after the intro) is also suspiciously similar to the first half of the Stage 1 theme from the NECPC 8801 version of Valis II, whose B-section in turn resembles that of "Mighty Wings".
  • Compare the opening notes from Zangief's theme from Street Fighter II: the World Warrior (or almost any bootstrapped rendition of his theme) and the beginning of Michael Jackson's "Bad".
  • Zangief's ending theme, to which he and Soviet (ex) president Gorbachev do That Russian Squat Dance, is appropriately a soundalike of Matvey Blanter's "Katyusha", with a touch of Ivan Larionov's "Kalinka".
  • Poison's theme from Ultra Street Fighter IV sounds quite a bit like part of the opening theme to Space:1999. The bass lines are practically identical.
  • The Volcanic Rim stage theme from Street Fighter IV, arguably the game's best piece of music, has pieces seemingly borrowed from pro wrestler Masato Tanaka's theme song "Dangan", Spark Mandirll's stage theme from Mega Man X, and Little Mac's knocked-down theme from Punch-Out!!!! It's basically a Suspiciously Composite Song at this point.
  • In Street Fighter V, according to Word of God, G's theme was composed with the Depeche Mode song Personal Jesus in mind, and at one point, Ed's theme was so similar to Lose Yourself by Eminem that the composer had to tweak it to differentiate the two songs.
• Viewtiful Joe:
  • "Main Title from Movie Sound Track" from the first game sounds awfully similar to the song used on the Vanity Plate for 20th Century Fox.
  • "Confession" sounds almost identical to "Reminiscences - The Class Trial" from another Capcom-published game, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (which first came out in 2001 for the Game Boy Advance in Japan).
• Vulgus main theme is very similar to Provincial Disco by a Latvian band Zodiac.
• The NES RPG game based on the hit movie Willow has song similar to "Theme from A Summer Place" when you enter a certain town.
• The appropriately-named track "Electronical Parade" from Killer7, played during the ISZK Land segment, is based on a riff from Baroque Hoedown, notable for being the theme to Disney's Electrical Parade.
• In Mickey Mousecapade, the Castle BGM is a copyright-friendly soundalike of "Kindly Leave The Stage" by Johnny Pearson.

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