The massive world of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 opens up for players early on in the game's adventure. It does a good job of allowing and encouraging players to traverse and explore its huge maps without any unnecessary handholding. It's a world that wants to be explored as it continually opens up throughout the game's story.
During the party's travels, however, some areas can't be accessed too early in Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Most areas will unlock organically as the story progresses, but some locations will require special traversal skills like Xenoblade 3's Sand Dune Skree Walking skill, Wall Climbing, and Rope Sliding, which allows players to access the new areas on the map via connected ropes.
It won't be long before players will notice the zipline ropes all over the map as they hide new treasures, unique monsters, and more. However, the Rope Sliding skill won't become available until Chapter 4 after completing Juniper's Hero Quest.
The Hero Juniper
Ghostbow Juniper is one of the Heroes that players will by progressing through the main story. Juniper is the commander of Colony Tau, a mysterious location found in the Maktha Wildwood. Juniper's class is the Stalker class, which is an archer-type that distracts enemies by putting the agro on to them. Juniper is a useful fighter in battle with good cancel attacks in Xenoblade 3 and a solid class to experiment with, but the main purpose for unlocking Juniper here is their Rope Sliding Skill, and one needs to complete their quest if they want to unlock it.
Juniper's Quest
The party will bump into Juniper if they follow Xenoblade 3's main story quest taking them into the Maktha Wildwoods. It is advised to be around Level 29-35 to obtain Juniper and the skill, so the party can make quick work of the bosses in this Hero Quest. The quickest and best way to find Juniper along the way is as follows:
- In the main questline as soon as the party arrives at the Old Way Caravan Shop in the Pentalas Region.
- At this point, don't deviate from the path and just continue along the red waypoint.
- After some time traversing ahead, the party will eventually arrive at the Maktha Wildwood.
- Their arrival will trigger a cutscene for the whole party.
- With the cutscene over, the party will continue forward until they are stalked and attacked by Juniper from an above overpass.
- With Juniper defeated, the party will need to follow their party back to the Colony in the woods by following the foot trail. This will activate Junniper's Hero Quest Natural Selection.
- The party will eventually arrive at Colony Tau.
- After a brief cutscene, the party will have the opportunity to explore the colony a little bit or just continue with the quest by speaking to Juniper again.
- After another brief cutscene with Juniper, 3 monsters will attack the colony triggering a miniboss fight.
- Once the monsters have been vanquished, Juniper will allow the party to destroy their Flame Clock and join the party as a hero.
- With the quest completed, the party will have the Rope Sliding Skill unlocked, allowing them to access all of the ziplines in Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
It's worth noting that completing Juniper's Hero Quest will also give the party access to the Faster Jogging skill by raising affinity in Xenoblade 3 and completing quests for the residents.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is available now for the Nintendo Switch