Suspiciously Similar Song / Konami

• The stage music for Dracula's stage in Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse sounds an awful lot like the Billy Joel song "Pressure" inverted (bass line on top, melody on bottom). Go into music demo mode, and what's that stage's music called? "Pressure."
  • "Beginning", the Stage 1 music, sounds like Michael Jackson's "Thriller".
  • "Dead Beat" is similar to the Dragon's Castle theme from Wonder Boy in Monster Land.
  • The Final Boss theme, "Big Battle", sounds like the "Storm" movement of Antonio Vivaldi's Summer concerto.
• "Entrance Hall" and "Chandeliers" from Super Castlevania IV resemble parts of Beethoven's "Piano Concerto No. 3".
• "Dracula's Castle" from Symphony of the Night borrows elements from Toto's main theme of David Lynch's Dune.
• The Character Select theme from Contra: Hard Corps, "Locked and Loaded," sounds similar to the Sir Mix-A-Lot song "Baby Got Back."
• Contra: Shattered Soldier:
  • "Survival of the Fittest" is suspiciously similar to Megadeth's "Symphony of Destruction".
  • "Submarine Power Plant" is similar to "Cold Rock the Mic" by Apollo 440.
  • "Jinmen-gyo", to The Prodigy's "Firestarter (Empirion Mix)".
  • "Relic of Moirai" sounds alot like Jean-Michel Jarre's "Oxygene Part 4".
• The hidden Hell Level from Ganbare Goemon 2 on the Super Famicom. It's a vague soundalike of Gegege no Kitarou's ever-so-iconic opening theme.
  • The final stage theme from the previous game (known as Legend of the Mystical Ninja overseas) is clearly a mix of The Ventures' "Walk, Don't Run" and The Chantays' "Pipeline", which the former band also recorded. What makes this even more obvious is that the official name of the track is just copied from another The Ventures song called "Diamond Head".
• Gradius series:
  • The intro theme of the third game's arcade version sounds like a mix of Maurice Ravel's Bolero and the Star Wars theme.
  • "Uncharted Territory/Unpleasant Cell", the final stage theme from the third game's SNES port, sounds like the verse section of Styx's "Mr Roboto" crossed with the Terminator theme.
  • Gradius IV's Plant Stage theme sounds like the Stage 2 BGM from Blaster Master.
  • Also in the fourth game, "Cronus"(Volcanic Stage part 1) and "Uranus" (Moai Stage) are similar to "Crystal World" and "The Old Stone Age" from Gradius II, resepectively, while "Hydra" (Liquid Metal) and "Dupon" (High Speed) respectively resemble "Sand Storm" and "Accident Road" from Gradius III.
  • The orchestral sections of "Something Green" from Gradius V are similar to Orbital's "Way Out ->", while the acid bass riff resembles that of "Don't Laugh" by Josh Wink.
  • "Fire Scramble" from Gradius III sounds just like Renaissance's "Song of Scheherazade".
  • The Ranking music in the first game sounds like the chorus of "You Can't Hurry Love" by The Supremes sped up.
• Depending on who you talk to, the Metal Gear Solid melody could be a shameless rip-off of the Speed theme tune or an up-beat suspiciously similar to "The Winter Road" by Sviridov. In each case the stylistic similarity is more obvious when looking at Gregson-Williams' orchestral version of the theme from the 2001 MGS2 trailer, but the melody's present in TAPPY's original 1998 version.
  • Big Boss's Leitmotif is suspiciously similar to the Metal Gear Solid theme, which sounds a little more tender than the actual melody due to the changing of two chords in the progression.
    • The song "Old Snake" seems to be suspiciously similar to the main theme as well, slower and sadder. Both of these are likely intentional.
  • And the Metal Gear KODOQUE theme in Metal Gear Ac!d and its sequel was suspiciously similar to the Metal Gear Solid main theme with the same chord progression but a different melody.
  • The main Recurring Riff in the original Metal Gear Solid (ambience, alert music, boss music, etc.) resembles Kraftwerk's "Radio-Activity", especially with that synthesized choir.
  • The theme tune of the festive fan parody game, Merry Gear Solid, finished with a suspiciously similar song to "Snake Eater" from Metal Gear Solid 3, called "Secret Santa".
    • Merry Gear Solid has a lot of these. The Merry Gear Solid 2: Ghosts of Christmas Past is full of them, often with hilarious results. For example, the Konami-ripoff logo at the beginning starts with the normal "doo doo doo, do do do" then finishes with Jingle Bells via pitch-shifting.
  • The indoor infiltration theme in the NES version of Metal Gear is similar to the Mission: Impossible theme, and the alert theme is a Suspiciously Similar Song to that of the original MSX version.
  • Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake had a soundtrack hacked together from gutted, chiptuned versions of the best action movie themes of the 80s. Some, like the similarity between "Advance Immediately" and the Terminator main theme, and the "Theme of Solid Snake" and the theme from Escape from New York, are subtle. Other, like the relationship between "Chasing The Green Beret" and the Mission: Impossible theme, are less so. Night Sight's theme was such an obvious ripoff of Michael Myers' theme music that it was excluded from the OST album. The bonus track "Swing, Swing~ A Jam Blues" is suspiciously similar to Sing Sing Sing by Benny Goodman.
    • "The Front Line" sounds similar to "Aqua Illusion" from Gradius III, another Konami game.
    • "Mechanic" (Hind D/Metal Gear D battle theme) sounds like a cross between the original Metal Gear boss theme and Bowser's theme from Super Mario Bros. 3.
    • Big Boss's theme is suspiciously similar to the miniboss/Tourian theme from Metroid, which itself resembles the castle theme from Super Mario Bros..
  • The ending theme to Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, "Calling to the Night", sounds similar to the Titanic song, "My Heart Will Go On".
  • "It Has to Be This Way", used during the final battle in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance sounds a lot, especially in the guitar and string riffs, to the vocal parts from "De Musica Ligera", one of the most famous songs from the Argentinian rock band Soda Stereo.^note This could be possibly a coincidence, as Soda Stereo is only known in the Spanish-speaking world, and they're practically unknown outside of it, much less in Japan, the country when the game was developed.
  • In another inter-Konami example, the Neo Contra theme song features a break with an awfully similar string chord progression. You almost expect it to segue into the Metal Gear Solid theme instead of turning back to the vocals.
  • The greatest offender is easily Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, with Takedown being almost 'note for note' a copy of Ascension 3 from Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Amazing how it went unnoticed for several years...
  • Mike Oldfield's "Nuclear", used on Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, is very similar to King Crimson's "Epitaph".
• Silent Hill:
  • "Fear of the Dark" is suspiciously similar to Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" from The Exorcist.
  • "She" is similar to The Animals' version of "House of the Rising Sun".
  • "You're Not Here" from Silent Hill 3 sounds similar to U2's "New Year's Day". Likewise, "Not Tomorrow" from Silent Hill and "Promise" from Silent Hill 2 both resemble "Sunday, Bloody Sunday", also by U2.
  • The title song of the first game, "Killing Time", "Theme of Laura", and "Overdose Delusion" have a recurring theme similar to Portishead's "Sour Times".
  • One of the ambient tracks in SH 3's Amusement Park of Doom is similar to "In the Grip of Madness" from DOOM (PlayStation).
  • "Terror in the Depths of the Fog" sounds suspiciously like Nine Inch Nails' "Terrible Lie", with hints of Björk's "Enjoy".
• The game over music of Dick Tracy for the NES is similar to the traditional funeral bugle call "Taps".
• In the first NES adaptation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the intro theme sounds similar to "Stone Cold Crazy" by Queen. The level 5 overworld map theme is kinda similar to the intro to "Come Together" by The Beatles.
  • The opening theme also sounds suspiciously like the solo from "The Number of the Beast by Iron Maiden. Compare Here and Here
  • The last part of the Area 5 Caverns theme is similar to the Base theme from Contra.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, the "Bury My Shell at Wounded Knee" theme begins similarly to the theme of For a Few Dollars More.
• The NES licensed game Top Gun by Konami has, as its attract mode demo music, a suspiciously similar Version of "Danger Zone".
  • Konami's later game with the same flight engine, Laser Invasion, also features a different song similar to "Danger Zone" for the first mission.
• "Hotter Than Hell" from Super C(ontra) sounds like the main riff of either Iron Maiden's "Two Minutes to Midnight" or Metallica's "Master of Puppets".
• The A-section of "Divine Bloodlines" from Castlevania: Rondo of Blood is often compared to "Greased Lightning" from Bad Dudes(whose intro is itself similar to the base stage theme from Contra), while the B-section is suspiciously similar to that of "Heat Wave(Area 5)" from Bionic Commando.
• BEMANI:
  • "Celebrate" by JJ Company from beatmania IIDX and DanceDanceRevolution is an obvious soundalike of "Boogie Wonderland" by Earth, Wind & Fire. Ironically, there was also a remix of the real "Boogie Wonderland" in some DDR mixes. Also qualifies as Self-Plagiarism, as JJ Company is an alias of former EWF keyboardist Larry Dunn.
    • The other JJ Company song, "Be In My Paradise", likewise resembles EWF's "After The Love Has Gone".
  • "Broken My Heart" by Naoki f/Paula Terry, originally from Dance Mania X and later featured in the DDR series, is suspiciously similar to "Remember Me" by Leslie Parrish, which appeared in ParaParaParadise.
  • "The Cube" by DJ Suwami is this to "Stepping Out" by Joe Jackson.
  • The intro and chorus of "Flowers" from DanceDanceRevolution SuperNOVA resemble "Lunatic Princess" from Touhou Eiyashou ~ Imperishable Night.

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