I voted for them because of the characters they eventually came to represent, Ash and Gary. Ash's determination and positive outlook on life carried the Pokemon tv series through... 14 series? Even though they ended up on friendly terms, the rivalry obviously still exists.
Link and gannon have been battling it out ever since... well I don't remember that far back, it was when Gameboy didn't have any additional text in it's name and a B&W screen. According to the LoZ timeline, link and gannon have battled through different reincarnations, the hero and the villain reborn in an eternal struggle.
FF7 is a great game, however every single one of it's spin offs has been terrible. Dirge of Cerberus, Before Crisis and Advent Children were all terrible... Nice soundtracks, terrible gameplay and storylines.. For Cloud and Sephiroth to stand a chance in these contests they would need to appear as main characters in GOOD current gen games (thus having exposure to a larger portion of users), and Sephiroth or a reincarnation of himself would also need to exist. Since neither of these events is likely... sorry don't get your hopes up about Cloud's continued status as acharacter... A FF7 re-release may see a spike in his popularity... but it would only be temporary.
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