Zero Vs. Link (yes, i'm really going there.)

[cheddarsword]

for years now I've wanted to see a good knock down drag out fight between the crimson slasher and the hero of hyrule, but aside from one semi decent flash animation and the POS from Cartoon Fight Club (which I just can't take seriously), there's been virtually nothing. nothing worth mentioning anyway.

so i'm doing this Death Battle style. I may not be able to animate, but for the hell of it, I want to at least ANALYZE the situation between the two fighters so we can at least have some idea of where they would stand. who knows? maybe good ol' Wiz 'n' Boomstick'll pick up on our discussion and take a hint!

first, I think it's worth getting a good idea of just who's doing the fighting here. now, everyone here knows zero, no question. and i'm fairly certain you're all familiar with the bearer of the tri-force of courage.

but there's a question to be answered before we begin to analyze the fighters.

we don't know who's fighting who.

"the hell are you talking about? it's zero, and it's link! what more do we need to know?"

well, there's various forms of BOTH characters, each with differing powers and abilities. for instance, X1 zero only had his Z buster, and an affinity for fighting. after being rebuilt in X2, he gained a hell of a lot more, becoming what i'll call "X Saga Zero", containing all of his abilities from X2 up to X8 and even the side games that are accepted as canon.

Then there's "Z Saga Zero", who is essentially Zero from Mega Man Zero. what makes him different you may ask? well for one, his arm canon is replaced with a hand gun, which can be powered up by placing his Z saber in it. also, he does tend to lose access to his abilities from the X saga. well, most of them anyway. the kuuenbu has been renamed, as well as the flaming sword upper. however, he no longer has access to the fighting moves he had in X8. There is enough evidence to support this, as he didn't retain much of the knowledge, only knowing how to work with the weapons he had on hand.

Though to be fair, I DO recognize the fact that Z Saga Zero isn't technicaly Zero, I do think he's at least worth considering.

as for link, well, let's face it. I don't think there's enough space in one post to even cover half of his reincarnations, so we'd have to settle on a few to work with.

of course, we could go "all in", and let him have access to everything he's ever had and done, but then, that's not exactly accurate, since some links didn't quite measure up to others. also, if we'd be doing it for link, we'd have to do it for Zero too.

so that's where we start off then. picking which variants are entering the comparison matchup.

oh, and something to consider. the Master Sword. I bring this up mostly because of Zero. It's called the "Blade of Evil's Bane" for a reason. evil can't touch it, and it REALLY hurts evil to be cut by it. which brings me to Zero's viral status. is he viral during the X series, and if so, would that be something that the master sword could take advantage of? I just thought it was worth considering when picking the candidates.

[Drago]

I guess we don't have a "Battle Arena" section. I suppose that makes sense, all things considered.

Death Battle has a bad tendency to nerf one character and buff the other, so unless it's a giant mismatch, the winner isn't always correct (looking at Gaara vs Toph & DK vs Knux). As stated though, sometimes, the characters picked are so one sided, even when they do their "balancing act," the winner still comes out on top (IE Kirby vs Buu or Digimon vs Pokemon). My point is that I would avoid using them as source material since they don't actually do their own research.

As for Zero vs Link itself, X Saga Zero tears through all incarnations of Link minus endgame Majora's Mask. The Master Sword is a powerful weapon that probably would do some damage to Zero, but Link isn't fast enough to keep up with the Hypersonic+, if not Massively Hypersonic+ speed Zero moves at. And that's not taking into consideration that Zero led the Special 0 Unit Stealth Force with great proficiency before he obtained his saber in X2. Zero takes out Link before he knows the fight has started. And that's not even taking into consideration if the Master Sword could even block Zero's saber. It might be able to hurt Zero due to the influence of his viral body, but his sword isn't evil or influenced by dark magic like Ganondorf's usually is. It is a magical sword, but I'm not sure how that would hold up against what is effectively a lightsaber in the hands of someone who can rip apart solid steel with his bare hands.

With speed equalized and the assumption that the Master Sword can block the Z-Saber, it becomes another story. Counting out Majora's Mask Link, who seems to have the powers of the gods in his hands (or on his face), I believe the Link with the best shot at this fight is Twilight Princess Link due to Swordsmanship and all terrain battle experience.

Due to all the different possible match ups, we would be here all month discussing this. Do you have a match up in mind? It could help clear things up and lead a more focused discussion. I would just avoid MM Link and Battle Network Zero because they're so damn powerful. XD

Oh! And welcome to the forum!