New Dragon Quest X Information and Screenshots Showcase Parties, Offline Leveling.

Giuseppe Nelva October 26, 2011 11:30 AM EST

Today Square Enix released some new information and screenshots about Dragon Quest X: Mezameshi Itsutsu no Shuzoku Online, focusing mainly on the party system and on some of the critters populating the five continents of the game. In addition to this they also shared some juicy details on how our characters will level-up while we’re not even playing the game.

In Dragon Quest X it will be possible to invite both other players and several NPCs found in cities to join your party and tackle quests or fight with you.

There will be an autofollow feature that will allow everyone to follow the party leader in order to reach a destination without having to actually control all characters.

One very interesting and rather unique feature will let you join fights already in progress. When you’ll see other players fighting a monster, you will be able to approach them and use the special “Cheer” emote. They will be prompted with a choice to allow you to join the fight or not. If they agree, you will be able to join the fight as you were part of their group and help them with their battle.

As mentioned above, you will be able to recruit AI companions at the tavern, and you will be allowed to create a mixed party with AI companions and other players. You will also be able to give detailed instructions to AI companions in order to make them fulfill the role you prefer.

Square Enix is even putting a bit of Gran Turismo 5 B-spec in Dragon Quest X. Before logging out you will be able to register at the tavern yourself as an AI companion. You will then be logged off, and your character will be available to other players as a companion. When you’ll log back in, if someone recruited him, your character will have gained experience from his adventuring while you were offline.

You can see the full gallery of the new screenshots below, including some pictures of the monsters that will be included in the game, both new and returning from previous chapters of the series.