Series with their own pages:
- A cross-series example, both by Koji Kondo: the "Fairy Fountain" theme
from The Legend of Zelda series is incredibly similar to the "Water Land" theme from Super Mario Bros. 3, but both based on the song "Morning Glory" by citypop legend Tatsuro Yamashita. Someone over at Siivagunner took notice and made a mash-up of the two songs. - In a possibly unintentional case, the Ridley's Hideout and Tourian themes in the original Metroid resemble the music from Bowser's Castle in the original Super Mario Bros., especially the opening notes of the bassline. The resemblance is further notable in that Tourian is roughly the Metroid equivalent of Bowser's Castle, since the final boss confrontation takes place there.
- The Tourian/miniboss theme is lifted straight from "The Gnome" movement of Modest Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition".
- The prologue music from Super Metroid (called "Theme of Super Metroid" on the soundtrack) is pretty much a slightly re-arranged version of the title music from The Terminator, with a hint of the end credits music from Blade Runner.
- The Upper Brinstar theme resembles "When Doves Cry" by Prince.
- Ridley's theme from Super and subsequent installments sounds suspiciously similar to the boss theme from the arcade version of Double Dragon.
- The theme used for the Hall of the Elders in Metroid Prime and Chozo Statues in Zero Mission is also remarkably similar to the ancient Greek song of Seikilos.
- The Chozo Ruins Depths theme resembles the Temple of Time theme from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time combined with elements of Metroid's own Tourian theme.
- The Tourian/miniboss theme
- Kirby:
- Kirby's Adventure has the Grape Garden theme, which sounds similar to "Silver And Gold" from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
- Kirby Super Star:
- The ending theme for the Revenge of Meta Knight subgame is a blatant parody of The Animals' rendition of "House of the Rising Sun". The song itself is even named "My Friend and the Sunset".
- The Game Over screen sounds quite similar to the chorus of Queen's "You're My Best Friend".
- The recurring Gourmet Race theme that makes its debut here is almost, but not quite, Hermann Necke's "Csikós Post", which is often played during sporting or racing events in Japanese media.
- Kirbys Return To Dreamland: "Underworld" has a part that sounds extremely similar to "Man With The Machine Gun" from "Final Fantasy VIII". One must wonder: how did they get away with this?
- Kirby and the Rainbow Curse: An example from the same series. "Watch Out For That Sloth" sounds very similar to "Reflected Laughter" from Kirby: Triple Deluxe. They're both mischievous yet swingy tunes in the key of A Minor. This mashup of the two songs highlights their similarities.
- EarthBound has a bunch of musical references, to the point that it was mistakenly believed for years that there were copyright issues preventing the game's rereleasenote .
- The riff used by the Runaway Five in the tune before you get on their bus (and reused in the ending credits) is more or less "In the Midnight Hour".
- The "hippie battle" theme is based on Chuck Berry's musical style, namely "Johnny B. Goode".
- The track Snowman from the lower segment of Winters sounds like a rearrangement of Kraid's Lair from Metroid
- The opening riff of "Bein' Friends" from the 1989 NES game Mother sounds kinda like the 1984 Talk Talk song "It's My Life". The similarity isn't to glaring until you hear the Super Smash Bros. rendition. To add to that, Steel Panthers used that same opening riff in "Party All Day".Mystic Quest also has this when you listen to the band in Fireburg and the title screen in City Connection.
- The drug store music is a note-for-note take on Dallas Rag, by the Dallas String Band.
- The music for the coffee-trip scrolling text sequences is slightly similar to "Learning To Fly".
- The music outside the boarding house sounds awfully like "You Never Give Me Your Money".
- In Mother 3, the "Mr. Batty" enemies have theme music that sounds strikingly similar—especially in its intro—to the 1960's Batman theme. You know—"Nahnahnahnahnahna nana nahnahnahnahnahna nana BATMAAAAAN!"
- In addition, the Jealous Bass music sounds rather similar to the Grease Lightning song.
- The Love Theme itself sounds a lot like "Beauty and the Beast" from, well, Beauty and the Beast.
- In-series, it's suspiciously similar to "Boy Meets Girl" from Earthbound.
- Perhaps the most unexpected borrowing is "Tragic Reconstruction," which is essentially a Boss Remix of the funeral march from Beethoven's third symphony.
- "Unfounded Revenge" is pretty much directly adapted from Shostakovich's Symphony 6. "Audacious March" is also very similar to a movement in Shostakovich's Symphony 5.
- There's also more...
- The Recurring Riff in the first two Wario Land games is, inexplicably, an upbeat Suspiciously Similar Song to "Beautiful Dreamer".
- Done in Elite Beat Agents, when most of the songs are covers. Most of them are exactly the same, but with different vocals, although some become faster (such as "Let's Dance", which is incredibly jarring listening to the game and original versions back-to-back). The exceptions are "Sk8er Boi" and "September", which might as well be the original versions, and "Jumping Jack Flash"; if it weren't for the lyrics, you'd think it was an entirely different song.
- For similar reasons, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, the Japanese counterpart/predecessor series to Elite Beat Agents, mostly uses covers throughout the game.
- The music from the stage builder of Super Smash Bros. Brawl sounds similar to Ravel's Bolero.
- The music from Brawl's target smash sounds a lot like Khachaturian's Sabre Dance
- The Sticker Album/Replay/Chronicle theme from Brawl sounds similar to the first few notes of the introductory theme from Mario Party 6, a connection heightened by the fact that the Sticker Album opens similarly to the book in MP6's intro.
- The Bayonetta series has a Real Song Theme Tune, the classic "Fly Me to the Moon." When Bayonetta became a character in Smash Bros., the music tracks included for her associated stage included a soundalike of this song
- The music from Brawl's target smash
- White Land from the original F-Zero resembles the Double Dragon theme, and to some extent Michael Jackson's Billie Jean.
- The Mute City theme in F-Zero and Track 18 from Lethal Skies 2 both somewhat resemble "Palace of Destruction" from Ys I & II. The latter also resembles "To Make The End of Battle". Another track from LS 2 sounds like a rock version of the James Bond theme.
- The Nintendo Power promotional video for Star Fox 64 features a song that sounds similar to Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit".
- The 25m theme from Donkey Kong is the bassline from The Ballad of John and Yoko.
- The "good approval rating" music in the SNES version of SimCity sounds like Sir Edward Elgar's "Pomp & Circumstance March No. 1", better known as the "graduation march".
- The song is also heard in two variants in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.
- The Town theme is similar to Beethoven's "Sonatina in G Major", albeit in the key of C major, mixed with the beginning of Mozart's "Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major".
- The Minor Circuit fight theme in the SNES Super Punch-Out!! kinda sounds like the theme of Corneria from the original Star Fox.
- Additionally, Bald Bull's theme bears some resemblance to Aerosmith's Walk This Way.
- Mr. Sandman's theme sounds a bit like the Get Weapon theme from Mega Man X.
- K.K. Slider's songs in Animal Crossing have a few examples of this.
- The intro to "Soulful K.K." kinda sounds like "Lean on Me"
- "Rockin' K.K." is practically the same as the New Age Retro Hippie music from Earthbound.
- The intro to the original live version of "K.K. Eurobeat" (a.k.a. "DJ K.K.") in Animal Forest sounds almost identical to a riff from the eurodance song "Get Ready for This". It was changed in all subsequent localizations and sequels, probably to get around the copyrights.
- "K.K. Adventure", introduced in New Leaf sounds a lot like "He's a Pirate" from Pirates of the Caribbean.
- One of the tunes K.K. Slider can play if the player requests an invalid song, featuring the internal name "Hazure02", sounds uncannily similar to "Sparkle" by J-pop artist Tatsuro Yamashita. For this reason, the Fan Nickname "K.K. Sparkle" emerged for the track in lieu of an official title beyond its filename.
- Star Foxs Corneria theme resembles the Stage 1 music from the shmup Vapor Trail. It also resembles Axelays Stage 1 music, although that's probably a coincidence, since the two games came out less than six months apart.
- The Corneria theme is a close soundalike of the main theme from After Burner: https://youtu.be/JyIIEBMh_2k
- The Asteroid Field and Sector X BGM's sound similar to TIE Fighter Attack and X-Wings Draw Fire, respectively, from Star Wars: A New Hope.
- The Course Clear music is similar to the ET The Extraterrestrial theme.
- The Corneria theme is a close soundalike of the main theme from After Burner: https://youtu.be/JyIIEBMh_2k
- Osc-Sync Carnival (Lightning) from F-Zero GX sounds like a mix of The Crystal Method's Keep Hope Alive and the breakdown of BT's Nocturnal Transmission.
- WarioWare:
- In the first game the music for Kat and Ana's boss stage "The Frog Flap" is very similar to "Music, Music, Music" by Teresa Brewer.
- Go Go Mike from WarioWare: Touched! has almost the exact beat from the chorus to "Greased Lightening" from Grease.
- In the first game the music for Kat and Ana's boss stage "The Frog Flap"
- "Calimari Inkantation" in Splatoon resembles the well-known Alstroemeria Records remix of "Bad Apple!!" from Touhou Gensokyo ~ Lotus Land Story. At least one fan took notice of this and made a mashup of the two.
- It also sounds like Transformation song from the first two seasons of Winx Club.
- It also sounds like Transformation song
- In Splatoon 2, the synth hits at the beginning of "Acid Flow" sound very similar to the orchestra huts at the beginning of Boomer Kuwanger's stage theme from Mega Man X.
- The Legend of Zelda's recurring Zelda's Lullaby theme sounds a lot like Mort Garson's "Concerto For Philodendron And Pothos" from his album Plantasia, 1976.
- The first part of the Prologue music from Star Fox Zero sounds like it was ripped straight out of a Star Trek intro. Also, the title theme is quite similar to the Back to the Future theme. The Corneria theme sounds like "Liberation of Gracemeria" from Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation, and Keiki Kobayashi from the latter's franchise was one of the composers on this.
- From Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, "Beneath a New Light" is an almost note-for-note copy of the main theme from Independence Day.
- Kid Icarus's ending theme sounds just like the Escape theme from Metroid, also scored by Hirokazu Tanaka.
- StreetPass Mii Plaza:
- The entrance theme sounds like the Japanese children's song "Kaeru no Uta".
- Part of the main theme sounds like the Coconut Mall theme from Mario Kart Wii.
- The Puzzle Swap theme sounds like "Lollipop".
- The entrance theme
