Suspiciously Similar Song / Nintendo

Series with their own pages:

• Donkey Kong
• The Legend of Zelda
• Pokémon
• Super Mario Bros.

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• 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 were 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 main Frigate Orpheon theme sounds very similar to the Mansion Second Floor theme (with a touch of the Basement theme) from Resident Evil.
• 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 Setting Sun".
    • 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.
  • Kirby: Planet Robobot: "Virtual Space Manipulator" sounds similar to certain parts of Unicron's theme from The Transformers: The Movie, what with the eerie, 80's-esque synths and all. Both tunes accompany enormous robots which threaten the universe.
  • Kirby and the Forgotten Land: Part of "Waddle Dee Town" sounds like the theme to Perfect Strangers.
• 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 rerelease^note It was actually the very large amount of potentially seizure-inducing flashing effects, which ended up being toned down when the game finally got a Virtual Console release in 2013.
  • 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 themes of Twoson ("Boy Meets Girl") and Tessie both share their chord progression with Paul McCartney's "Too Many People". The former of the two even borrows part of the song's melody.
  • The hotel theme, officially titled "Pearl Necklace", is very similar to the song "El Bimbo" by the Bimbo Jet group. It was later released by Paul Mauriat in Japan under the name "Olive Necklace", which Itoi mentioned in an interview.
    Shigesato Itoi: I knew that the people I worked with were capable, so I could mess around when I gave them orders. For example, for the hotel music, I asked them to put "Olive Necklace". And Summers is a resort, so I requested something like "Bacharach" for that. I don't know why, but I made them throw in what I imagined.
  • Fourside's theme ("Surrounded by Skyscrapers") sounds like what would happen if Beethoven's "Pathetique" was mixed with a salsa song, such as "Si Te Menti" by Lalo Rodriguez.
• 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 Greased 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.
  • Much of the soundtrack quotes classical music. "Tragic Reconstruction" 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, and "Audacious March" is also very similar to a movement in Shostakovich's Symphony 5. "Somewhere, Someday" quotes, as the name suggests, Leonard Bernstein's "Somewhere" from West Side Story.
  • Fun Bazaar borrows a lot from The Beatles' Back In The U.S.S.R.
  • 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
• 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 Sidewinder V 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.
  • Mute City also resembles "Let's Get Small" by Go-go group Trouble Funk (see here and here).
• The theme from Devil's Forest in F-Zero X, "Devil's Call In Your Heart", features a riff that is extremely similar to the opening riff of "Heartwork" by Carcass.
• 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.
  • Meanwhile, Punch-Out!! Wii has the Minor Circuit Title theme in career mode, which seems to take off of The Police, and Synchronicity II specifically.
• 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.
  • "K.K." Sonata resembles "The Lonely Man" from The Incredible Hulk (1977)... and also has a section that sounds bizarrely like "Tomfoolery" from SpongeBob SquarePants.
  • The guitar part of "Only Me" resembles parts of R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts" and the Kakariko Village theme.
  • 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.
  • "K.K. Condor" sounds similar to Andean folk song "El Humahuaqueño."
  • "K.K. Faire" sounds similar to Okinawan folk song "Tancha Mebushi."
  • "K.K. Chorinho" sounds similar to "Tico-Tico no fubá," a Brazilian choro song by Zequinha de Abreu.
  • "K.K. Bossa" seems to be inspired by "The Girl From Ipanema."
  • "K.K. Dixie" sounds like "When the Saints Go Marching In."
  • "K.K. Moody" sounds similar to the Mexican bolero "Sabor a Mi" by Álvaro Carillo.
  • Part of "K.K. Milonga" sound like "Milonga del Angel" by Astor Piazzolla.
  • "Steep Hill" sounds similar to Japanese folk rock song "'Ichigohakusho' o Mōichido" by Bang Bang.
  • "K.K. Synth" sounds similar to "Pure Jam" by Yellow Magic Orchestra.
  • "K.K. Cruisin'" sounds like "Virtual Insanity" by Jamiroquai.
• 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 A New Hope.
  • The Course Clear music is similar to the ET The Extraterrestrial theme.
• 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.
• Splatoon:
  • "Calamari Inkantation" 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 the Transformation song from the first two seasons of Winx Club.
  • In Splatoon 2, the synth hits at the beginning of Acid Hues sound very similar to the orchestra hits at the beginning of Boomer Kuwanger's stage theme from Mega Man X.
  • "Buoyant Boogie", one of the tracks from Splatoon 2's single player campaign, has a lot in common with the song "15 Storey Halo" by ABC.
• 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.
  • "In the Name of Bern" bears a heavy resemblance to a segment of the song "Lunar Sea" by Camel.
• In Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, Tibarn's theme, "Brave General, Brave King", lifts part of its melody straight from "He's a Pirate" from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
• "Dream Catcher" from Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE has a very similar melody to "Calamari Inkantation" from Splatoon. Given that both games were published by Nintendo for the Wii U in 2015 and Tsubasa and Ellie perform the song in outfits similar to those worn by Callie and Marie, this was almost certainly intentional.
• 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".
• At least two cases of this can be found in Animal Crossing (2001):
  • In the original N64 version, the intro to the live version of "DJ K.K." ("Eurobeat" in Japanese) 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 song's copyright.
  • The main riff in both the 9 AM theme and 6 PM theme bears a remarkable resemblance to the main synth riff of "Simoon" by Yellow Magic Orchestra. The similarity is highlighted by this SiIvaGunner parody of the latter, which is simply a flat-out Cover Version of "Simoon" in the game's soundfont (with K.K. Slider doing vocals in place of Tyrone Hashimoto, who provided guest vocals on the original song).
• The rocket belt theme from Pilotwings starts off with the exact same notes as "Misunderstanding" by Genesis, before changing into something that sounds more like a jazzier version of "Roundabout" by Yes. Soyo Oka has mentioned herself that she listened to the latter group.
• "Bird Man" from Pilotwings 64 sounds similar to "Free as a Bird" by The Beatles.
• “Apex of the World” from Fire Emblem: Three Houses sounds like a much more intense version of “Tantal-Night” from Xenoblade Chronicles 2.
• The heavy metal song from the Concert Hall in Tomodachi Life resembles both Metallica's "Master of Puppets" and Judas Priest's "Painkiller", to the point where SiIvaGunner created a mashup of the three songs.
• In the arcade version of Gumshoe, the Stage 2 theme (which also exists in the NES ROM, but is Dummied Out) is a nearly note-for-note copy of "Walking On Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves.

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