I was playing Contra Uprising for the first time recently on Xbox Series X. I chose Bahamut. I noticed aside from being Arc Systems Works and Guilty Gear-like art he also looks like he could be one of the Striders. Specifically a mix of Strider Hien and Strider Hiryu. (For those unaware in the Strider series Hiryu is the main guy as he is the best Strider. Striders are Cyberninja operatives)

Bahamut. Contra.

Strider Hien in white and Hiryu in blue.

Speaking of Guilty Gear. I'm shocked Gungrave has never made it in a Guilty Gear game even as DLC. He looks like a GG character.

Have any of your own? It can be unintentional or fully intentional nods.

Culex is an immediate one that comes to mind for me.

FF15 characters look like a boy band, does that count?

Edit

Palworld to Pokemon is an obvious one.  

Trevor in GTA. He's straight out of Twisted Metal.

Mallow looks like a Kirby character

Every Soul Calibur character looks like they could hang in Mortal Kombat, and at times even Guilty Gear. 

The Battletoads look a little like TMNT characters

These were not licensed. Not to mention Godzilla not licensed in the game either lol.

Inherit Zone of the Enders 2 from Konami. All the Orbital frames (mechs) look similar in ZOE2 except Inhert. It looks straight out of a Shin Megami Tensei game of that era. Which makes sense Kazuma Kaneko designed it and only this one. This is while he still worked at Atlus.

Speaking of he also did work for Devil May Cry 3. As I understand it this was done on a handshake deal. Dante is put in a version of SMTIII Nocturne and Capcom received Kaneko's art for the Vergil and Dante Devil Triggers.

My first thought was Blanka.

That dude (which apparently is some sort of manifestation of the Queen Leech) from Resident Evil 0 who summons the leeches. At the time, seeing him was a bit of a WTF moment.