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The general issue is how Death Battle takes ambiguous and unfair perspectives to their characters, seemingly at random. Sometimes it is done fairly, other times it is done to justify their fan-boy picked victory. In this match, Cloud suffers from a continuous story line, so he is subject to all the strengths and weaknesses shown in the compilation of FFVII. Link does not have a continuous story line at all, he was given the powers his various incarnations had and whatever weaknesses that his character had in any installment is erased by the strength of some other one. In short, they were setting things up to make Cloud lose. It really was not fair to use a composite version of Link to begin with – that’d be like giving the abilities of every main hero of every Final Fantasy to Cloud.

The composite Link aspect is likely based on the idea of the reincarnation of Link. But this is still a fan theory and it is not a clear fact in any sense. It's also wrong. Link, in any consecutive timeline (timelines that don't break off into an alternate reality) have at most six generations of Link. Furthermore, we know from Twilight Princess that the Spirit of the Hero of Time was talking to the new Link. He's clearly not being reincarnated if he's talking with and training his successor.

 

Even if Link did have 10 generations of experience, it doesn’t mean he has enough experience to surpass the sword mastery and sheer power of Cloud, who directly inherited Zack’s skill. A guy who nearly beat an entire army, armed with guns, swords and even missile-launching helicopters. Yes, the Crisis Core ending is the official canonical ending of Zack – the original cut scene from Final Fantasy VII showing Zack’s death has been essentially overwritten since Nomura decided to revise that bit.

 

Link is supposed to be a “master swordsman” according to Screwattack. In fact, he barely duels someone who is supposedly an amazing swords-master in any game, he usually fights unarmed monsters and occasionally just ordinary guards. We rarely see anything fancy by Link. Cloud is shown to be a swords-master of superhuman proportions – performing split-second midair maneuvers, making super high jumps that nearly give him the appearance of flying, and cutting whole buildings in half. Since he inherited Zack’s skills, we know he can deflect machine-gun fire from multiple opponents and nothing will get through! That’s some truly amazing sword skills. Zack was even capable of slicing rockets in half just right, so they wouldn’t explode in his face, essentially disarming them. Cloud could do that against Link’s bombs maybe. If we take all of Cloud’s known abilities all the way up to the end of Advent Children (Complete), we need a good deal of what he is capable of.

 

One more bit of evidence they used to pass off their excuse of Cloud’s defeat is that the Master Sword is evil’s bane and it would home in on the evil of the Jenova cells within Cloud. This is more speculation, a theory. The Master Sword was always used to defeat a person that was evil (such as Ganon, yet it won’t even effect Twinrova) and even then, one swipe is nowhere near enough to take Ganon down. It is never shown being used to kill a person who is good at heart but has some “evil” within them. Every living person (realistically) has some sort of evil within them – does this mean the Master Sword is their bane?! Thus the fair thing to assume is that the Master Sword would affect Cloud no more than a normal sword.

In Advent Children Complete Sephiroth practically butchered Cloud with his Octoslash after the attempted original Omni-slash that went horribly wrong. And even after getting shish-co-bobbed, he took Sephiroth down with a perfectly executed Omni-Slash Version 6. Meaning even several attacks in sensitive spots would not be enough to take him down with the Master Sword.

 

Now one of the big reasons they pick Link as the winner is the Golden Gauntlets – allowing Link to lift over 1000 tons. Now he just doesn’t pick it up like a toy, he takes time to lift it! And it only seems to work at times (perhaps they have limited power, etc.) but it seems obvious he can’t use that strength all the time… if he could swing his sword with strength like that, Ganon couldn’t survive more than one sword swipe. And nor could any other enemy for that matter. Getting these gauntlets does not increase his striking strength at all, yet Wiz and Boomstick take it into account anyway. The only reason this item should have been considered at all was if Link tossed a boulder at Cloud - in which case, Cloud would have just cut the boulder in two. The guy can slice up skyscrapers, after all.

 

In a game like Ocarina of Time, Link even needed the assistance of Princess Zelda to hold Ganon in place with magic while he delivers the final blow. Why does a guy who can basically lift mountains need help to beat this guy? I don’t think having the Triforce of power makes Ganon THAT durable. So obviously the gauntlets do not increase his striking power.

 

Furthermore, they assume the pillars Link tosses in Ocarina of Time are made of granite… another assumption. Funny how they forgot to mention in Goku vs Superman that Goku pushed around rocks like this when he was a kid… *cough cough*

 

They jacked up Link, giving him equipment from essentially random games and mixing and matching them as they pleased. This was cheap, and as each Link has different sets of equipment, and each Link is technically a whole different person! And since when can Link run around super-duper fast with every movement like a Final Fantasy character?! Even with the combination of the Pegasus Boots and Roc’s Feather, Link can only run and jump further than normal – they would not grant him mid-air maneuverability like Cloud has. If he could do this sort of stuff, why doesn’t he ever do it against Ganon or his other adversaries?! Because Link CANNOT do this sort of stuff. Unless of course, you overpower him, a la ScrewAttack.

Cloud, on the other hand, was limited to merely just two materia because they have him only using his base weapon in the game FFVII, the Buster Sword. Not Ultima Weapon, which has way more material slots, or the Fusion Sword from Advent Children which gives him several weapons in one – no, just his plain old Buster Sword. This greatly cheapened his capabilities, like Cure and so on – there was a ton not used by Cloud because of his Materia limit, while Link could use EVERYTHING from any generation that they saw fit to use. Yet they clearly show Advent Children clips in the analysis, meaning he should have the Fusion Sword… go figure. How is it fair to mix and match any and all of Link’s best equipment from his 10 generations and then cut Cloud off with his base weapon?!

 

Outright disrespect is also shown for Cloud by mocking his haircut and calling his limit breaks “emo-charged” and claiming he looks like “a girl” (as if Link never has…) They also say he doesn’t approach his battles smart and just tries to break through with his brute strength. NOT true. Cloud is not reckless; he just slipped up against one of the greatest swordsman EVER. He has fought many battles against various enemies that require strategy, not just brute strength. They also claim Cloud is “straightforward and predictable.” No he isn’t. The only reason Sephiroth “predicted” Cloud’s movements is because he fought Cloud before – but Sephiroth could not predict his newer Omni-Slash and there’s no way Link could either.

 

It’s also ridiculous to claim Link is a genius for figuring out dungeon puzzles and methods to beat his boss foes. They’re not that hard. A 12 year old could figure this stuff out. (Yeah, I was playing and beating Zelda games at 12, and younger obviously). The puzzles are part of how the game works; it’s actually one of the main catches of every Zelda game. It doesn’t mean Link deserves a PhD.

 

They note Cloud beat Sephiroth 3 times (and they even point out Sephiroth is a planet-buster) and they show him getting stabbed multiple times from Advent Children Complete – meaning they should have used Advent Children Complete Cloud, giving him Omni-Slash Version 6 with the Fusion Sword. Because of the fact that Cloud beat a planet-buster master swordsman, that means that even Fierce Deity Link would not guarantee a win for the Hyrulian hero.

 

Also, Cloud does not need necessarily need time to build up his limit breaks, this is just a game mechanic in FFVII so you can’t spam them. He can actually spam most of him limit breaks in Dissidia, except for his ultimate Omni-Slash attack. He clearly pulled off his new Omni-Slash in an instant and in mid-air against Sephiroth so quickly he caught the fiend off guard. But for the sake of this battle, we will give him this limitation anyway – he would still win.

 

The technique used to finish Cloud off was Link dropping a set of bombs on him simultaneously after dropping Cloud with ONE slash while he was doing his ultimate attack… since when can Link drop that many bombs at once?! The most he could ever do was set two at once (and that required a special ring to be worn). Furthermore, if Cloud has Omnislash Version 6, he would be moving so fast Link would be confused by the appearance of two Clouds – because in the movie there actually does appear to be two Clouds attacking Sephiroth at one point; whether this was because Cloud was moving that fast, or Cloud actually duplicated himself, we don’t know – but the fact remains anyway. Link would have died when Cloud unleashed this attack.

 

Link may have an amazing arsenal. But he's just not capable of beating someone like Cloud.

Screwattack are run of group of nerds and that is their opinion if they think Link would win the battle.