Haha, that's funny. It has a hint of the theme inside of it, but not really. I'd like to state that many songs that even Yasunori Mitsuda composed had many similarities to other themes that other composers had written. Take "Fuse" from Xenogears for example. It was incredibly similar to Eric Serra's "Run, Shoot & Jump" from Goldeneye.
Or if anyone remembers the Final Fantasy VIII demo that was packed in with Parasite Eve a long time ago...The opening theme, "The Landing" sounded very much like Hans Zimmer's "Hummel Gets The Rockets" from the movie The Rock. It actually sounded almost alike that they rewrote that theme altogether.
So in conclusion, if the theme only sounds a little alike, it couldn't be completely considered "plagiarism". If they asked the original composer or such, to use a similar tune, and they agreed, then it wouldn't be plagiarism. I'm guessing since the FFVIII theme was pretty much tune for tune the same, that was considered plagiarism, and they had to do what they had to do: change it.
