Setzer Gabbiani

Setzer Gabbiani is a gambler and a party member in Final Fantasy VI. He owns a large airship named the Blackjack. He also makes an appearance in Kingdom Hearts II.

Background information
Setzer's past is vague; the earliest flashback depicts him as the familiar airship enthusiast / gambler. He had a female friend named Darill, with whom his exact relationship with is not fully elaborated on. Darill designed and built her own airship, the Falcon. She and Setzer used to race alongside each other in their airships together. During one such flight, Darill split off from Setzer, saying she was going to try flying higher than anyone had before. Setzer had faith in her and told her that he would wait for her on "our hill." Setzer waited until after the sun had gone down, but she never returned (her airship was later found crashed in a far-off land). Setzer would thereafter restore the Falcon and entomb it within Darill's grave.

Final Fantasy VI
In Final Fantasy VI, Setzer is first of in Owzer's house in Jidoor. He is a notorious gambler who travels the skies in his airship Blackjack, and he has an infatuation with Maria, an opera singer. He has announced that he will abduct Maria during the piece "The Dream Oath: Maria and Draco". The main characters head to the opera house, where they use Celes as a decoy and thereby gain access to his airship when she is abducted instead of Maria.

When he discovers Celes is not Maria, Setzer promptly tries to throw them all off his ship. The party explains that they need Setzer's airship to reach the imperial mainland, but Setzer is reluctant because the Empire is responsible for his loss of business and is a dangerous adversary; his claim that the Empire made him rich were retconned with the Game Boy Advance release. Setzer agrees to help out the player characters after losing a coin toss to Celes. She had used a double-sided coin, provided by Edgar, which had a head on either side, each side displaying the portrait of one of the heirs to the kingdom of Figaro, Sabin on one side, and Edgar on the other. (Setzer learns this, but he loves their tactics and helps them anyway.) He takes them to the Southern Continent, and later, he helps them flee Vector, fighting his first battle with the party against the cranes.

In the World of Ruin, Setzer is one of three characters that is required to be recruited to the party. Following the aftermath of the cataclysm, Setzer winds up in Kohlingen, where he is found in a pub lamenting the loss of his ship. When Celes, Edgar, and possibly Sabin encounter him, he is hesitant to rejoin them, but Celes snaps him out of despair. He directs them to Daryl's tomb, the resting place of his late friend. In the depths of the crypt Setzer relives his memories of his and Daryl's romantic rivalry, revealing the restored hulk of her airship, the Falcon, which is turned over to player control.

Kingdom Hearts II

 * For more information, see Setzer's article on the Kingdom Hearts Wiki.

Redesigned by Tetsuya Nomura, Setzer appears in Kingdom Hearts II as the champion of the previous Struggle battle tournament and thus defends his title in the current Struggle tournament. While the virtual simulation had Roxas beat/lose to (depending on the player's ability) the champ, the real Twilight Town's Setzer lost to Seifer Almasy. From his features and his battle ability, Setzer is a notable womanizer.

Setzer holds the distinction of being the first major Yoshitaka Amano Final Fantasy character to appear in the Kingdom Hearts series. When Sora challenges him to battle later on in the game, Setzer opens the fight by remarking his famous quote: "My life is a chip in your pile, time to ante up."

The look of the character changed compared to its original incarnation. He was given a more showy attitude than in the original game, as seen when he attempted to bribe Roxas into throwing the match. The original Setzer, while possessing a sense of style, was notably a melancholy man, and was not as much of a playboy as shown in Kingdom Hearts II.

Slot
Setzer's special ability is Slot, which uses a slot machine to activate a variety of special attacks and techniques. With the relic Coin Toss, Slot is transformed into GP Rain, allowing him to throw gil at all enemies in battle, causing an amount of damage equal to the amount of GP that was tossed.

In Final Fantasy VI Advance, the Coin Toss relic is Heiji's Jitte (referring to Zenigata Heiji) and the command is Gil Toss.

Trivia

 * Setzer (and his airship, the Blackjack) has been referenced in "Hiro's Blog" on the NBC  website.