History Main / RecurringRiff

* The ''MedalOfHonor'' series has these in spades; eg "Main Theme", "Taking Out The Railgun", "Attack on Fort Schmerzen", "The U-Boat", "Manor House Rally", "Sturmgeist's Armored Train", etc.

* This is very popular in modern musicals. Shows like ''Wicked'', ''Les Miserables'' and just about anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber have about five tunes reconfigured into twenty songs.

** ''LesMiserables'' does this a lot too, especially with "Look Down", which appears whenever something related to prison or misery comes up (Work Song, beginning of The Confrontation, Look Down, in the sewers), and "Fantine's [[spoiler:Death]]", which appears in relation to some main characters' deaths. In fact, most of the musical is built on recurring riffs.

* The ''{{Ys}}'' series has several recurring riffs, for example, "Adol's Theme", which is one of the opening musics for ''Ys Book I and II'', recurs in some of the dungeons of the other games(eg. the Canal in Ys II, Mountain Shrine in Ys IV, the stage entrance and Ilbern Ruins musics in Ys III, and the ending of ''Ys V''), and the ''Ys IV'' overworld theme not only has many variations in its titular game(Field, Great Forest of Selceta, Blazing Sword, Beyond Reminiscence, Valley of Quicksand, etc.), but in ''Ys VI'' as well(Windslash Steps, Mountain Zone, which also partly sounds similar to the Solomon Shrine music in Ys II, and Defend And Escape!(when you escort Olha and Terra out of the Romun ship), which also resembles part of Niena's theme from ''Ys V'', and the latter part of "Field Of Gale" in ''Ys V''. "Overwater Drive", heard in the Limewater Cave in ''Ys VI'', is roughly a remake of "Beat of the Terror", the Abandoned Mine music in ''Ys I and II''. The motif during the cutscene where the Ark of Napishtim is revived recurs during the second half of the final boss battle(The Depth Napishtim), as well as in Defend And Escape!.

** ''StarWars'' uses this a lot, despite many themes apparently being intended to mainly represent specific characters. The "Main Theme" was originally meant to be Luke's theme, but was used as this less and less as the series went on. In ''TheEmpireStrikesBack'', Yoda's theme is often used at seemingly unfitting times. The original film uses Princess Leia's theme at odd points as well, such as when Obi-Wan dies.

* "He's a Pirate" from the ''PiratesOfTheCaribbean'' series, has been featured in almost everything related to it, from all three films, to being the battle music in the ''Pirates'' themed world in ''Kingdom Hearts 2'', to playing in the queue for the original ride.

* ''KingdomHearts 2'' reuses all the exploration and battle themes of the original's worlds that also appear in the sequel.
** All of Organization XIII's themes in [[KingdomHearts Kingdom Hearts II]] contain a piece of the Organization's main theme, "Another Side." These pieces have been collected in to an orchestrated work called "[[CrowningMusicOfAwesome The 13th Anthology]]".

* ''DawnOfWar II'' likes using the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Cn-QyhHayQ "Dark Future of War"]] theme. For example, the part from 1:35 to 1:50 is used as the "mission complete" jingle and the melody (especially the four notes at 1:45) can be heard in the planetary map background music.

*** The [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3PwjzsR7pY=suspense theme]] played several times throughout the first three AA games, was replaced in AA4, only to come back in AAI.

* Several of the riffs from the ''Monty on the Run'' theme song are reused in ''Impossamole''.

** The boss themes in the first game were mostly based on the same riff.

* Most ''MegaMan'' games use variations on a four-measure riff ([[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHS97lomzUk heard here]]) when a stage has been selected. As far as this troper can determine, the piece's name is "Robot Master Chosen."

** Another example is Protoman's Whistle, which heralds his appearance starting in ''Mega Man 3''. It's even played with in ''Mega Man 5'': [[spoiler: when an off-key version is played, it's the indication that the Proto Man that appears is an impostor]].
** To a lesser extent, there is the ''Mega Man 2'' title screen theme, which shows up in some later games, usually during the credits.
** The first three games of MegaManBattleNetwork also use variations of the same main theme, which also made the occasional appearance in later games (such as in the credits music for 5). 5 also uses a variation of 4's theme.

* As mentioned above ''MegamanBattleNetwork'' uses its main theme in many parts, most noticeable being the "Heroic theme" and the Final boss areas.

* ''MegaMan 9'' has several of its [=BGM=] tunes use a recurring riff based on its title theme.

** Don't forget the "Stage Clear" theme (of which there are two versions).

** The original version of [=RE1=] has the mansion theme, which occurs in different variations on the first and second floors, and gets remixed into even scarier form when you come back to the mansion from the guest house, which is major NightmareFuel, especially when fighting the Hunters and spiders.

*** Also, the boss themes ("Killers", "Night Sight", "Big Boss", etc.) shared the same or a similar riff, "The Front Line" and "Level 1 Warning" are remixes of "Advance Immediately", and "Mechanical" is a remix of ''MetalGear 1'''s boss theme.

* The ''{{Ys}}'' series has several recurring riffs, for example, "Adol's Theme", which is one of the opening musics for ''Ys Book I and II'', recurs in some of the dungeons of the other games(eg. the Canal in Ys II, Mountain Shrine in Ys IV, the stage entrance and Ilbern Ruins musics in Ys III, and the ending of ''Ys V''), and the ''Ys IV'' overworld theme not only has many variations in its titular game(Field, Great Forest of Selceta, Blazing Sword, Beyond Reminiscence, Valley of Quicksand, etc.), but in ''Ys VI'' as well(Windslash Steps, Mountain Zone, which also partly sounds similar to the Solomon Shrine music in Ys II, and Defend And Escape!(when you escort Olha and Terra out of the Romun ship), which also resembles part of Niena's theme from ''Ys V''), and the latter part of "Field Of Gale" in ''Ys V''. "Overwater Drive", heard in the Limewater Cave in ''Ys VI'', is roughly a remake of "Beat of the Terror", the Abandoned Mine music in ''Ys I and II''. The motif during the cutscene where the Ark of Napishtim is revived recurs during the second half of the final boss battle(The Depth Napishtim), as well as in Defend And Escape!.